


Fire, Blood, Lust, Empire

by thedynasty



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Aunt/Nephew Incest, Chronology, F/F, F/M, Gen, Historical povs, Incest, M/M, Maester narration, Might be occasionally semi-explicit, Older Woman/Younger Man, Probably plenty of it since it's the Targaryens we're talking about, Rhaenyra wins the dance, The Dance of the Dragons | Aegon II Targaryen v. Rhaenyra Targaryen Era, The author does not approve of various aspects of this story, Yet...Targs are gonna Targ
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:06:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 10
Words: 73,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24762820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedynasty/pseuds/thedynasty
Summary: Snippets from the lives of the kings and queens upon the Iron Throne, beginning with the reign of Rhaenyra I Targaryen.Each chapter will be focused on one monarch, with narration in the style similar to Fire & Blood intermixed with character POV's relevant to the reign of that chapter's featured king or queen.This story will move through periods of canon, incorporate whenever it can various and more familiar canon characters, until it moves past the events of the books/show.
Relationships: Benjicot Blackwood/Rhaenyra Targaryen, Larra Rogare/Viserys II Targaryen, others
Comments: 35
Kudos: 32





	1. Rhaenyra I Targaryen - "The Resilient"

**Ben Blackwood - 150 AC**

When she'd lost King's Landing, through her own choices and mistakes, Ben could admit this to himself, they'd mocked her, the Half Year's Queen, or Queen Maegor with Teats, from peasant to rival lord to even the occasional less than faithful ally. Until her dying day none dared to address her by the latter, but Queen Rhaenyra I Targaryen, whom the maesters had, reluctantly or not, granted the honor within her lifetime bearing the name of the "Resilient", wore her 'Half Year's' branding with pride, as a constant reminder of how wrong they'd all been, those who had doubted her, given up on her, abandoned her.

But if Green sympathizers had cause to doubt her resiliency, they would have yet been wise and well informed to bet what coin they possessed for the reign and eventual victory of King Aegon II, "the Usurper." Ben's wife, whom he'd yet to meet at the time, had been driven out of King's Landing bereft of all her children except the boy Aegon, so they'd all believed then. About to sell even her crown for safe passage to, well, somewhere, the Queen had been this close to falling for the Usurper's trap waiting for her at Dragonstone, perhaps it was only the most fortuitous yet tenuous timing of the Gods which brought he and Oscar to her in time to intervene against the darker fates awaiting her.

Elmo Tully had less than a few moons remaining in his life, though neither Benjicot, nor Elmo's sons, knew it at the time. Lord Elmo's father Grover, the Lord of Riverrun, was already dead, though none knew that yet either. Barely a year into his lordship of Raventree Hall after his father's death, they'd sent him riding north immediately after the battle, with barely a good night's worth of rest, to ride to Riverrun and plead with a dead man for more men, because the Peakes and Hightowers had indeed retreated south in good order, and the lands around King's Landing far from secured.

"Who th' fuck are you to tell us what to do?"

That had been Adrian Redfort, one of the few remaining set of Whitecloaks who served at the Queen's side, who'd brusquely dismissed him after they'd caught up with her not so stealthy entourage a day's ride north of King's Landing. The banners of the trout and his own house clearly visible amongst other surviving tatters from the recent battle at Tumbleton, yet the woman who was to soon become his wife within a few moons still peered out anxiously and suspiciously at them, from inside her wheelhouse.

"Hold your tongue ser!" It was the younger son of Elmo Tully who immediately came to his defense. Though he was not an heir and would never inherit any great lands, not in Westeros at least, the well adorned armor of any son, or grandson, of a Lord Paramount of the Realm was enough to command respect from even the most vaunted of knights from poorer houses, if not envy further deep within their hearts. "He may look a boy, but Lord Benjicot's the one who broke the enemy center at Tumbleton bridge, aye he fought as well as any man twice his age and size!"

A timid set of purple eyes peered out at them from within the wheelhouse, resisting his mother's efforts in hiding him behind the curtains.

He blinked, and returned to the present, seeing that broken man, nay King, twenty years older, standing at the head of the Sept, staring down at his mother's body, purple eyes even more downcast than usual, yet traces of the same innocence which carefully observed Ben and his newfound Tully friend so many years before, as they continued the arguments that may as well have changed the course of the war, if not the rather unique circumstances of the succession which came afterwards.

"Your Grace, if you don't trust the loyalties of House Velaryon at the moment, Dragonstone's the last place I'd advise you to seek refuge at."

Ben had dared to address the Queen directly, careful not to sound too commanding, because though she was his Queen, the woman whose cause they'd shed so much blood for at Tumbleton less than a moon before, the would be Rhaenyra I Targaryen was naught but a fleeing refugee at this perilous moment, her knights no better than a band of bandits in the eyes of their enemies, and he and Oscar Tully the ones with the armies, they were the ones who could've ended the war right then and there for Aegon II Targaryen, he'd heard some of his men grumbling those sentiments later that evening. He'd had them hanged before sun set and nightfall arrived.

"What does Lord Benjicot advise then?"

Her voice sounded weaker than he'd expected to hear from a Queen who'd entranced all the realm ever since she were a child much younger than he. Her eyes did not meet his, or Lord Oscar's, but seemed to constantly shift instead towards the line of banners behind them, and the men who carried their flags, glancing occasionally and furtively at his sword.

'She thinks we're traitors,' he'd realized at the time. 'She thinks we're going to ambush her and betray her and present her head to her traitor brother.'

Queen Rhaenyra grown fat since the days every man in the seven kingdoms, and quite a few women, he was sure, lusted after her. They'd long whispered of her faded, nay lost beauty, in the camps from Raventree Hall to the Reach, yet despite her weakness, her timidity and dare he think, cravenness in this lowest point of her war, and her life, he'd later realized, there was still an immeasurable and intangible power contained and resonating within her voice, her presence, which would entrance him from the moment his eyes first set upon one of the few privileged royal Valyrian lieges that had ruled his land for well over a hundred years by now.

"Lord Cregan Stark continues to march south," he answered, maintaining his voice and stance as steadily as he could, "yet it'll still be many moons before any his armies pass through the Neck." Though Ben fought on the battlefield like a man, they said his voice still sounded a boy's, and he hoped that in this instance his immaturity would prove fortunate, that the Queen would be less threatened than were he to look and sound a more dangerous threat against her.

"The Hightowers have retreated south," Oscar continued, "but the news from King's Landing may well spur them to take advantage of the moment."

"We don't know where the Baratheon armies are, Dorne, they say, but Lord Borros is certain not to be able to give chase in the Vale."

"Seek refuge in the Eyrie," the Queen remarked, glancing at Lyonel Bentley, who looked the youngest of her protectors. "That's what Ser Lyonel tells me to do. But the road is far..."

"She's a madwoman," Ser Adrian commented derisively about his own liege lady, shaking his head disapprovingly. "Lady Jeyne, she scares me."

"Aye, as mad as a Targaryen," Ben had heard a soldier grumble near the rear of the Queen's procession, and did not think at the time a good sign that her last so-called loyal bannermen would be so quick to flippant insults within earshot of their Queen.

"I'd trust her word," Ben said, ignoring all the other knights and looking straight into the Queen's purple eyes, "and the honor of House Arryn. Aye, it's a long march through the mountains, dangerous at that. But you have thousands of swords protecting you now, Lord Oscar's and mine first among them..."

The men were put to good use merely days later, beating back a small Bracken host marching south seeking to join with the Greens, who'd stumbled upon their progress along the King's Road. Though she'd not raised her own sword, the Queen had galloped her horse wildly back and forth during the short battle, urging on her men. It had been that very night after the battle, madly exhilarated by the blood and glory, that she'd first called, nay ordered, Ben into her tent and under her bedsheets for the very first time, even as he'd limped from a wound he'd taken on his right leg during the worst of the fighting.

"You were staring at my teats," she'd scolded him even while she took his maidenhead, and he suckled upon her like a piglet starved for half a fortnight. "That's no way to greet a Queen."

"Still gave you good advice, didn't I?" She stopped, slapped on the face, and he laughed, then they continued to devour each other.

Weeks afterwards, lying firmly entrenched between the plush limbs of the Queen in the chambers of the Eyrie, she'd whispered to him, eyes sad and despondent and given over to weeping shortly afterwards, "this isn't home. I want to go home." When she spoke, her breath reeked of wine, and sweat from her body glazed all upon his skin. He'd closed his eyes, hugged her tightly, running his hands across her back and her skin, still pale and perfect despite her less than lithe size, and knew that, aside from riding into the thick of a battle, there was nowhere else he'd rather be.

Then, he'd felt the blood rushing into a different organ of his entirely. 'Had she been pregnant then,' Ben tried to recall now, avoiding the sight of his late wife and Queen by studying the careful and studied gaze of Prince Viserys, sure to follow in his brother's feeble footsteps into the Iron Throne sooner or later. What a morbid tradition, he thought not for the first time, lying the dead out for display, though he figured the ways of the east far worse.

Closing his eyes, he tried again to recall those happier moments, feeling the way his body tremored within her grasp as he'd never tremored in war, moving his mouth and tongue onto her plump breast once more, running his hand down between her legs, his wrist brushing against her thick lower mane as he pushed his fingers between the Gods knew which slick crevice he probed and fondled back and forth. They'd fucked at least three or four times each night those early days, though Ben doubted she remembered half of it. Often, she would wake in the middle of the night having fallen asleep on top of him, some of her drunkenness having worn off, then demanding that he'd service every inch of her royal body, probably not realizing that he'd done so twice already that night.

Sometimes between the fuckings she wept, the reasons were obvious, weren't they? For the children she'd lost in the war, for the friends who'd betrayed her, for lost husbands and lovers from another life of hers that Ben had never known, for a crown and throne she'd doubted she'd ever gain again. Does she remember the crying, he often wondered, or does she only let herself cry in front of me when she's too far gone? He never asked her this, not even until her dying day. Their sheets remained inevitably soaked well into the mornings, reeking of what, sweat, sex, piss even, the Gods knew what and whose juices splashed between them when her body convulsed and he let himself become absorbed deeper and deeper into her until nothing else existed for him, nothing at all, except raw touch and feeling. He'd wake in the morning, and feel his limbs numb with her pressed upon him, snoring until the late autumn sun was settled well above jagged mountain horizons to their east, and wondered what the Lady Jeyne's handmaidens thought when they took and cleaned their stained sheets from each prior night's activities.

They had the rest of their lives together, the rest of her life anyhow, for the better or the worse of it, but it was those first months together in the Eyrie that Ben recalled most fondly now. Too quickly the interlude ended, the maesters telling her she was with child even as ravens sang songs of the approach of both Cregan Stark's vast armies from the north, and the arrival of the remaining Tully and other banners from Tumbleton, ready to make one last push for their Queen's sake. During the small and subdued wedding ceremony Ben couldn't help but cast his eye warily at that morbid thing the Valemen called the Moon Door as they recited their vows in the Great Hall of the castle, wondering what he'd gotten himself into, wondering of Rhaenyra would even remember marrying him the next day. They departed not too long afterwards, because he had a war still to win for his Queen, and now wife. Were things ever the same after that?

Certainly the fucking continued, through each of the three daughters she'd given her, all taking his name rather that of the dragon's, and pushed far behind in the great succession, to Ben's relief, after the return of Viserys and all his progeny. They'd fought, she'd screamed at him and he occasionally screamed back, though more often than not he remembered his place and bit his tongue and met her in bed afterwards all the same, because there'd always been something violent about their attraction, conceived amidst a great war and literally the night immediately after a battle. Even as she grew older, wrinkles lining her plump body, he'd desired her, there was something raw and, well, animalistic between them that remained what it was, until her final, and mercifully brief sickness.

'Sleep well, my love,' he whispered inside his mind. 'I'll join you soon, but I've yet wars to win in your memory.'

Was it love? Funny after twenty years of marriage, he still wasn't sure. Certainly not at the beginning, he'd been a boy who'd been over eager to stick it anywhere, much less inside a Queen, and she, well, he supposed all she wanted was a harmless distraction at the time, after all that she'd endured during her first brief and failed stint in King's Landing. But there was love, he decided this only now, even if such craven sentiments were overpowered more often by the lust, or the wrath, it still remained a steady backdrop for most of their years together. Shame neither one of them could have admitted it to the other while they both lived.

* * *

**The Citadel**

...if choosing to seek refuge in the Vale rather than her favored castle of Dragonstone saved the war for her, if not her very life, one could argue that her subsequent pregnancy helped sealed her victory afterwards. Of course, the unborn daughter secured Queen Rhaenyra the loyalty of Lord Benjicot Blackwood, who'd subsequently put down each and every rebellion against Rhaenyra and her sons, who'd help bring Lys into the royal domains of his wife during her lifetime, and subjugate Volantis during the reign of Viserys II Targaryen, but for the immediate present, there was the unintended effect that the Queen's pregnancy kept her bottled up in the Eyrie, preventing her from ineptly interfering in a war that was about to be won for her.

The final clash between the Blacks and the remainders of Aegon II's armies, led by Borros Baratheon, at Rosby turned quickly into a rout. The Velaryon betrayal, not unwarranted by far, served only the purpose of carrying Aegon's broken body into King's Landing following Rhaenyra's escape, and then ferrying the king and his few remaining advisers out of the capital after it became clear that, with the declaration of Lyonel Hightower for the Black cause, that the war was lost and King's Landing would fall to its besiegers sooner or later.

One can only imagine the Queen's curses upon hearing of her half-brother's escape to Essos at the time, though the return Aegon II Targaryen to continent of his ancestors would ultimately and inadvertently result in the eastward expansion of his enemy's domains, and that of her descendants, the peaceful incorporation of Dorne into the Targaryen domains notwithstanding. Thus Rhaenyra returned to her capital with her son and heir, along with the silver-haired Jaenaera Blackwood, her first daughter with Lord Benjicot, promising all sorts of fire and blood and vengeance on those who'd betrayed her.

The two immediate subjects of her wrath was her former Hand Corys Velaryon, and Ser Perkin the Flea, whose mob had ruled King's Landing in her place before welcoming Aegon II into the city upon his arrival from Dragonstone, his attempt at tricking and entrapping Rhaenyra having failed. Despite ordering his fleet to abet in the king's escape, the old Sea Snake had no intentions of living a life in exile, surrendering himself to his former Queen's judgment, however harsh it was likely to be. It was also Corys himself who ordered the capture of Ser Perkin, whom he despised as a trickster, a schemer, and a general scoundrel, and asked during his trial only that he be allowed to witness the hedge knight's execution before dying himself.

The burning of Perkin was said to have been a morbid sight indeed, even for those who despised him, but Corys Velaryon had years to live yet. In the name of his fame and repute and years of prior service, the Queen was hectored for days by the Tully brothers, Lyonel Hightower, and even her own husband, into showing mercy for the old hero. Lord Cregan Stark, her new Hand, argued that the famed sailor should be sent to the Wall, but having changed her mind towards mercy, she embarked on that road fully, forfeiting his title but allowing him to live out the remainder of his years on Driftmark.

Perhaps aware of her failures her first time ruling King's Landing, (though one can cast ample blame on that fiasco upon the Green faction for having emptied the royal coffers beforehand), the now properly crowned first Queen Regnant of Westeros let her Small Council do most of the ruling for the remainder of her reign, while she herself tended to her new daughter and enjoyed the company of her young husband. And what a fine Small Council it was, for a weak queen, one of the most fabled in the history of the seven kingdoms. Lord Cregan Stark, known as the 'Hand of Summer', since he insisted on returning to the North to preside over his own people whenever winter returned or neared, had the overwhelming task to preside over the trials of thousands of smallfolk rabblers for their crimes during the rioting of King's Landing. In the end less than two hundred hanged, while nearly a thousand traveled alongside him back north for service at Castle Black. Less would have likely died, if the Queen had not herself insisted on the punishments of each man, woman, and child proven, in Lord Cregan's eyes, to have had a hand in the maimings and eventual killings of Bartimos Celtigar and the mistress Mysaria.

The future Queen Jeyne Arryn ruled in Lord Cregan's place whenever the wolf chose to disappear into the winter snows, and though the thought of a woman wearing the pin of the Hand horrified many across the realm, Rhaenyra herself insisted that if a woman could rule the realm, so could another run it. Lord Alyn Velaryon, bearing no ill-will over the acrimony over his brother, was naturally appointed the Master of Ship, while Lord Paramount Kermit Tully of the Riverlands was made Master of Laws and Torrhen Manderly Master of Whispers. In an almost conciliatory move, her former enemy Lyonel Hightower was appointed Master of Coin, while Harrold Darke, who'd been the first to counsel her towards refuge in the Vale, named Lord Commander of the Queensguard, despite rumors that the Queen was already conducting adulterous affairs both with Ser Harrold, and the younger Lyonel Bentley, (this maester believes these were no more than false tales spread by former enemies who resented the Rhaenyra's victory in the war). Finally, Grand Maester Gerardys regained his former spot on the Black Council, while the Rhaenyra created a new seat for her third husband, Master of War, upon his reaching his majority in 134 AC...

* * *

**Ben Blackwood - 150 AC**

"Lord Benjicot." Viserys Targaryen, the new Prince of Dragonstone, nodded towards his stepfather during the subdued feast after the funeral. "How long before you return to the capital?"

Rhaenyra's boys were mere years younger than Benjicot, and the fact that he'd married their mother and bedded her every night they were together always made Ben uneasy before the royal princes. He imagined the likewise for them, thought such discomforts did not prevent him from working well enough with Viserys on the Small Council together.

"Half a year," he mused wistfully, missing his home, having missed the familiar walls and hallways he'd grown up in every day he'd spent in the accursed capital of the seven kingdoms. "I expect I'll have plenty waiting on my table upon my return?"

"The headaches never end," Viserys agreed. The man rarely smiled, yet was far from the grim personage as was his elder brother, their new king. No, the younger of his stepsons was merely constantly serious from morning through night, mind never straying from the state of the kingdoms he'd inherit one day, or his children, were Aegon would outlive him.

"More troubles in Lys?" They both turned to look at Oscar Tully, several tables away, and Ben recalled the furtive glances at him during the funeral, the secret shared between them that few knew, certainly not King Aegon or Prince Viserys. The heir nodded, and his old friend approached their table conspiratorially.

"Volantis, actually," Oscar whispered in his ear. "Don't say anything, it might be nothing..."

"It might never be anything," Viserys added. "Or if it is, not for many years."

"Mum's my lips," Ben agreed readily. He was so tired of secrets, yet secrets were as viable a currency as coin in the capital, he'd long learned to his dismay.

With Oscar, their secrets predated their arrival at King's Landing. Rhaenyra had invited Lord Oscar into her bedchambers into the Eyrie early on after their arrival, and several times they'd worked together to pleasure the Queen, a perverse reflection of how'd they'd fought for her in battle before, and would do so again. Then Oscar departed to help Lady Jeyne amass her bannermen. Ben would've accompanied him too, but Rhaenyra had ordered him to remain, so he'd had her to himself those wonderful moons.

Rhaenyra fell pregnant, Oscar returned, they'd shared her bed together a few times more, including on their wedding night. He'd laughed about it at the time, reveling at the slack jawed look on Lord Kermit's face upon hearing of the debaucheries of his younger brother, and Benjicot learned then that, for all his bawdy talk in camp before, Kermit Tully was something of a prude where it concerned his family, forcing the both of them to swear not to say a word of the tryst to anyone afterwards, a most sensible request, Ben realized later, when he'd learned more of the politics that accompanied his new position as Lord Consort of the Seven Kingdoms.

"It's a banking thing," Oscar said with a wink, before moving to return to his seat beside his Rogare wife, a distant cousin of the Princess Larra's, "so you know it'll take fucking forever."

"And the longer we wait," Ben said knowingly to the Prince, "the longer Dorne waits."

Viserys nodded conspiratorially. There was an oddly perverse pleasure to this too, knowing the deepest of the wily prince's plots and plans, a feeling of specialness, that of being singled out by the royal few, thought it was a different sensation entirely from having a queen to himself. Mostly, anyhow.

It was only after Rhaenyra's return to the King's Landing after it fell, when Ben realized that he no longer wanted to share his wife with Oscar, or anyone else. Perhaps the weight of the marriage had finally sunk upon his mind, or maybe it had been that momentous first time he'd glimpsed Rhaenyra holding in her arms their beautiful daughter, his first child. Regardless, he could not help but feel those intense pangs of jealousy whenever she and Oscar Tully even stood in the same room. As a younger son, many would've expected his friend to take the black, and Rhaenyra had mused in front of him about naming Oscar to her Queensguard, so it had been almost a relief when, after Viserys's return, whispers grew of troubles in Lys with his wife's ruling family, and Oscar Tully was sent east by Rhaenyra on behalf of her gooddaughter, and more relief still when he'd heard of the beautiful Lyseni wife Oscar had taken for himself. So their friendship remained unclouded, and Oscar true to his promise to his lord brother that not one word was uttered ever again of that particular sordid tale, though the secret remained theirs to share for the rest of their lives.

"To the Queen," Oscar's gruff voice echoed behind him later that night. Ben had been standing by himself in the throne room, staring one last time at the hideous chair his wife had sat upon for nearly two decades, thinking how strange it would be now to see someone else upon it, even if it was just the young and timid Aegon he'd known since before the Vale.

"What a woman she was," Ben mused, whispering more to himself than to Oscar. How he'd known where he was going to be, Ben didn't know, nor did he question it.

"What a woman," Oscar agreed, "well-fed and well-fucked to the very end."

He was grinning, and Ben couldn't help but chuckle, because who else but Oscar would dare to say such words to the Queen's Hammer, as they'd come to call him after the last war.

"You're going to have to lose a few stones if you think you can still raise your sword against the sellswords of Volantis," Ben said, patting the red haired magister on his back.

"I've some fight left in me yet," Oscar insisted, rubbing his belly and juggling it with his palms. "Might not be as young as you, but the Dragonknight keeps me on my toes out there."

He spoke of Jaehaerys, Viserys's son and eldest. If Rhaenyra had been reluctant to wed Jeyne Arryn, a woman older than herself, to Aegon, her son and heir, Viserys had been most supportive of his brother marrying the woman the young prince insisted on choosing as a second bride. Perhaps Viserys truly wanted his brother to be happy. More likely though, as all the court guessed, the new Prince of Dragonstone was more than keen for the heir to the seven kingdoms marrying a woman already too old to bear him a child. There was Dorne too, the Arryn alliance one step closer to gaining the kingdom which had taunted the house of the dragon for so long, though very few in the court knew of that.

Regardless, if Viserys himself would never inherit the realm, his great son would one day sit upon the throne. At merely four and ten years of age, he was already known as the Dragonknight, Jaehaerys the Valiant, Jaehaerys the Brave and Beloved and all the accolades the realm could imagine to bestow upon his broad shoulders, the most beautiful of all the Targaryen dragonseed ever born, though how they judged that particular accolade Ben knew not. An early prodigy with the sword, all but certain within the next few years to prove himself the greatest warrior in all the realm, Ben could not begrudge the young Prince his early prowess, for what had he been but a prodigy of a similar sort all those years ago, when he'd won a war on one hand and a Queen on the other?

Yet he wondered. It was an open secret in the court, that Jaehaerys was obsessed with hatching a dragon egg, bringing those creatures back into the Targaryen fold. That had been one of the reasons the young prince traveled to Essos all the time, in search of lost eggs, while sparring with Oscar in the meantime.

'A vaunted warrior, and a dragonrider," he wondered to himself. In truth, the thought made him nervous. There was that business with Alyn Velaryon too, another secret he known to him, though he fervently wished otherwise.

Shaking away his dangerously treasonous thoughts, he turned to Oscar and shrugged.

"He's already itching for a war, isn't he?"

"Scares me," Oscar agreed. "He'll do fine, I'm sure. But if the Gods want to curse me, they'd do it by harming even a hair on the boy's head. Viserys would have me killed for sure."

"He won't." Ben shook his head. "If it's war, then it'll be his war, and Viserys knows full well he'd reap all the consequences, for good or ill."

"It'll be his throne too," Oscar said, obvious words, "even if he never sits a day upon it."

* * *

**The Citadel**

Not only had Rhaenyra I Targaryen won the Dance of Dragons, it would be her seed and her seed alone which would occupy the Iron Throne in the generations to come, even when it was the banners of the Direwolf which adorned the throne room and the walls of King's Landing in the years after the Long Night. But that had not been the new Queen's intentions at first. As always, she'd first resisted the idea, before giving in to the counsel of her advisers, agreeing to betroth her son and heir Aegon to the Princess Jaehaera, once Aegon II's daughter had been apprehended along with the Dowager Queen Alicent Hightower in Pentos in 131 AC. Her great rival Rhaenyra raved about burning alive as well, but gave in to Lord Lyonel's request to return his kinswoman to Oldtown in disgrace. "Does no good for Queens," the Lord of Oldtown was said to have spoken to Rhaenyra, "the executing of another Queen, whether she sits on the Iron Throne or not."

The betrothal of Jaehaera and the future king Aegon seemed clearly the only obvious path to permanently end the war, also diminishing at the same time the cause of the King in Exile, who'd found his safe haven with the triarchs of Volantis. So it was done, their marriage ceremony a grand spectacle indeed, a message to all the realm high and lowborn that the harsh sufferings of the past war was finally over, the glory of the Iron Throne and the Targaryen dynasty fully restored. But the reprieve, alas, proved short lived.

The unlucky Princess died merely two years afterwards in 133 AC, succumbing to the Winter Fever too young to have consummated her marriage, much less provide an heir for the young Aegon. Though all accounts, even from the fool Mushroom, insisted that the sweet girl's death was natural and indeed, heavily mourned by even the Queen herself, rumors of foul play spread from Oldtown to Volantis. Not only did she lose the last tie binding her to her half brother, Rhaenyra had lost a most valuable hostage as well, and the Queen's men began looking warily east again, because it was only a question of not if, but when, the next war began.

But Aegon's hosts had little appetite for war on a distant continent for the moment, not when a more proximate threat was rising at the time much closer to their shores. Then, it seemed a happy coincidence for their enemies to have merged, when the powerful House Rogare of a resurgent and newly independent city of Lys presented the long lost Prince Viserys, Rhaenyra's second son with her uncle and second husband Dameon, offering his return only on the condition that his marriage to First Magister Lysandro's daughter Larra be recognized by the court and the boy's mother.

Again, Rhaenyra raged and fumed for all to hear, the nerve of not just the Rogares to extort such demands, but their duplicity in keeping her son hidden away from her for four long years, until he'd been barely old enough to marry and impregnate his wife. But though she threatened war, the truth was her son's life was very well in danger until she agreed to their demands, so it did not take too long before she was convinced by her council upon a more prudent course. Few would have expected how quickly her attitude was soon to change towards the Rogares.

It was clear, upon Prince Viserys's return to Westeros, that he was absolutely infatuated with his beautiful young wife, seven years older than he, and almost as quickly did the strange and foreign Larra Rogare gain the favor of Rhaenyra herself, if few other factions within the court. When tragedy struck twice the young princess in the year 135 AC, first with the death of her firstborn son days after his birthing, a precocious boy the royal couple had named Aegon, followed shortly by the passing of her father in Lys, it was said that the no one cried and consoled the princess more than the Queen herself. And with the imminent collapse of the Rogare Bank and dynasty in Lys, Rhaenyra swore to destroy the enemies of the same family she'd vowed to destroy merely a year before.

Notwithstanding the complications afterwards, ones in which an older Prince Viserys would take full well advantage of, the initial annexation of Lys came surprisingly easily for Rhaenyra and her allies. While the Lord Hand Cregan Stark argued against the war, he was also ensconced in Winterfell when the decision was made. His counterpart, on the other hand, the Lady Hand Jeyne Arryn was eager for intervention for the purposes of securing her own crisis of succession in the Vale. Unmarried and childless then at one and forty years of age, whispered by some to have preferred the company of maidens in her bedchambers, notwithstanding her later marriage to Aegon III Targaryen, the 'Maid' of the Eyrie was determined to confer as her heir her distant cousin Joffrey (whom their detractors claimed she bedded, yet another accusation, likely false, that alas cannot disproven outright). To strengthen his claim, she demanded a substantial share of the Rogare Bank for her chosen heir as part of the settlement, and to placate Ser Joffrey's rival claimants, the Arryns of Gulltown, she intended to secure significant trade concessions and agreements for the largest port city in the Vale.

With the support of some Rogare partisans within the city itself, the Velaryon fleet, carrying a modest host comprised mostly of the Knights of the Vale, as well as a number of Riverland banners led by Ser Oscar Tully, into the warm waters of the Summer Sea. Despite his initial objections, Lord Cregan of Winterfell also gave his permission for a northern contingent, comprised mostly of survivors of the Winter Wolves from the last war, to sail eastwards and make their fortunes in Essos. The city fell quickly to Targaryen banners, and though Princess Larra's eldest brother Lysaro had perished in the streets of the city not long after the initial riots, lordship of the city and its traditionally claimed lands along the southern coast were bestowed upon Lotho Rogare, who'd originally accompanied his sister to King's Landing. Lord Lotho then bent the knee to the throne which preserved his family's status and power, thus conferring upon the Seven Kingdoms their first territories on the continent of Essos, even while their own continent remained not entirely conquered yet.

Princess Larra gave birth to a second son the following year, who would survive to one day sit on the Iron Throne as Jaehaerys II Targaryen, "the Wicked", and it is worth pondering what could have been for the realm, what horrors could have been avoided had Aegon, her firstborn, not perished...

* * *

**Rhaenyra I Targaryen - 150 AC**

Dying was sure as hell a most unpleasant business, and Rhaenyra was glad she'd pushed her life as far as she had. It had taken years before she'd been able to reexamine in her mind her first reign in King's Landing, and all the disasters which befell her in that immediate aftermath. Her children from her first marriage, her sweet Joffrey, who died impetuously, trying to salvage what could've been their last hope in the city, she tried her best not to think about. But the fact was that had she gone with her instinct, had Harrold Darke not pushed her away from sailing for Dragonstone, had Ben and Oscar Tully not arrived fortuitously to escort her to the Vale, she would have died, not that she'd not come so close to death already that harrowing escape from the city, a Queen and her Queensguard living almost as beggars from town to town.

The bastard Aegon had planned to feed her to his dragon, she'd found out later. Of all the burnings she'd ordered, watching her half brother bound, burn, and die screaming had been the most satisfying, because he'd meant for her a very similar fate. She was dying now, but at least she'd outlived him by a good nine years.

It began with the vomiting, and they said it must've been from the feast the night before. That was a good memory for her, both the celebrations, and afterwards the beauties Roggerio brought over from Lys. Years before she would have clawed Ben's eyes out had she ever caught him with another woman. But the Queen was not blind to the way the ladies of the court threw their bodies at him. He ignored them for her sake, pretended to, at the very least, but Rhaenyra also could not ignore how hard it was for Ben to control himself especially in the sight of a particular Westerling girl, whom she'd promptly sent back to The Crag. But her husband was going to want to fuck someone his own age, or younger, sooner or later, so at least let it be through her good graces, after all, hadn't she allowed Daemon his dalliances? Roggerio was good about that, bringing over girls who were beautiful enough in looks, but had neither the mind nor the spirit to leave Ben with any lingering feelings afterwards. And if he were to enjoy himself separate from their marriage bed, why shouldn't she as well?

But it wasn't the whores, the maesters insisted her sickness came from the fish, exotic river trout from Qarth, that had not been cooked well enough. No one else got sick eating their meals, however, and by the second day all her body ached and her heard burned, and Rhaenyra wondered whether her brother's revenge had come long last. Then came the stroke. She felt little pain after that, except she could no longer move her body, she could barely feel her husband kissing her, holding her hand, comforting her. Her mind remained alive, nothing else, and that was torture in itself. Useless, paralyzed, no better...no, worse than a cripple now, she wished for death, and knew it would come sooner than later.

At least she'd lived a much fuller life than most others she'd known, warts and all. Certainly a better life her enemies enjoyed, that had been her doing. A more interesting one than her great grandfather Jaehaerys, a livelier one than her father Viserys, having experienced all the peaks and valleys this world had to offer. She'd conquered Lys, she presided over a vaster empire than any before her, save old Valyria. Dorne, which had escaped even the great Aegon I Targaryen, was closer than ever, and would be completely before Viserys drew his last breath, she was sure of that. The maesters would attribute it to luck, to her advisers, to her sons before giving her credit for any of it, Rhaenyra was sure of it, yet the facts were what they were.

And she'd loved, as much as that love hurt her so badly so many times, she'd milked all she could out of the two greatest men and warriors of her age. Three, actually, if she could count the arch traitor Criston Cole, oh how glorious would it have been if he could have burned before her eyes as well. Daemon she'd loved with all the fierceness of a dragon's breath, she'd given him everything, her heart, her innocence, her reputation. He'd disappointed her badly many times, yet it was all worth it for the glorious and fleeting moments of bliss they'd shared. And in the end, hadn't he died for her nevertheless, hadn't he given her two sons, two heirs who may both one day sit upon her throne to come?

And Ben...even in her wretched state then, she recalled vividly seeing in the boy's eyes that pure lust, the first time they set eyes upon the other upon the kingsroad. His presumptuousness should have enraged her, yet it flattered her, when all she could hear was the derision behind her back of the beauty she'd lost to age and childbirth. Even Daemon, he saw her more as a spinster than a wife their last days together, performing his husbandly duties for the sake of duty and little else. But the raw lust in Ben's dark eyes she remembered, and she recalled little else in the next few moons, her life a never ending circle of wine, dick, and sleep, anything to numb her and keep her from dwelling upon all she had lost, until the reverie was broken when she first looked the purple eyes of her first living daughter, heard the news of the capital won and the false king fleeing, and thought her eyes clear and wondered just how much and how long she'd been blind to it all.

With Daemon, she never forgot whom they both had been, when he'd taken her maidenhood, she a girl eager to please the most handsome and dashing prince in the land, he the proud dragon who never deigned to look back behind his shoulder, who barely deigned to waste his time in her chambers when he had all the most beautiful women in two continents begging for his cock wherever he traveled. That feeling of inferiority never left her, that desire to please him, to prove her worth to him, even after they finally married and had their roles reversed, she his Queen, and he a consort, his title gained purely through marriage and nothing else.

There'd been Harwin too, but he'd been little more than a body she'd needed after Criston, and she'd grown tired of him quickly, even though he continued to service her until after Joffrey was born. Ben, she thought at first she'd tire of as well. But there was something to their couplings...he'd always get his, and plenty of it, but when they were together she thought and did nothing that did not serve solely her own pleasures, yet that made it somehow better for both of them since the very beginning. If she'd lost seven kingdoms and most of her family, she at least had this one boy to command, to bend or break at her will. She ordered him to pleasure her again and again, because she could, she made him lick all her holes through the night until his jaw ached, because she could, she pissed on him, she stuck her feet into his mouth and fucked him with her toes, she treated him worse than the pleasure slaves out in places like Yunkai and Astapor, because she could.

And because she somehow knew that the more she abused him, the harder he'd fight for her, when the time came, the longer he'd dedicate his life towards eradicating her enemies for her, the only prophecies of hers at that time which proved true.

Did she love him? Not then. She would have preferred Oscar Tully, who was closer to a man grown, except she knew the young lord saw in her nothing more than a plaything, that he may well prove to be not so unlike her last lovers were she to have chosen him. And even though she was already and newly married by then, upon arriving at the capital she'd nevertheless made subtle advances towards the cold Lord of Winterfell, before realizing rather immediately that Cregan Stark was not the kind of man to yield to her in any way, except in court, and grudgingly at that.

It was only years afterwards, between their second and third daughters, when he'd become a man, and she wasn't so horribly old yet, that Rhaenyra thought was the height of their passion, though this love entirely and indescribably different from the love she'd felt for Daemon, much less for Criston when she'd been a child. The fighting got worse too. As she lay dying, she could admit to herself now that much of it had been her fault. Lord Blackwood had his lands and responsibilities back at Raventree Hall, yet each and every time he left her for moons at a time, she imagined the worst and knew it to be true, picturing her husband, whom she loved yet was afraid to admit to him, she saw so vividly in her mind Ben fucking every wench and servant girl in the Riverlands. He'd return, she'd scream at him and accuse of him the worst, threaten to burn him alive, yet they both knew all of it was naught but a prelude to the painfully glorious night they'd spend together mere hours later.

It was more a joke near the end, yet she still could not help herself, and Ben used her for his own purposes at least once. She needed a new Hand after that rotten business with Alyn Velaryon. Jeyne Arryn she could call back to the capital, but the woman had already snatched her son from her, she'd wear a crown one day even as she robbed away one full line of her heirs from Aegon's side. So naturally she'd name her husband, and told him as such, upon which he promptly not only embarked for Raventree Hall for a full seven moons, but took with him without asking their precious Dyana as well, the last daughter and child they had together. In a fit of spite and rage she'd named Viserys Hand instead, only for her rotten scoundrel of a husband to admit that had been his intent all along, and how easily had he played a Queen into his hands.

Yet ironically that would be one secret she'd keep from the maesters, who'd praise her for her foresight in bringing Viserys to the forefront of the realm, of how, raised by his mother to the Small Council, he'd be recognized one day as the wisest and shrewdest steward in the history of all the known continents. The only question left, the Queen mused happily in her last moments, was not whether, but how many more of the Free Cities would be conquered under the stewardship of her sons and the hammer of her husband's prowess on the battlefield, that she would sadly not live to see.

There was fire and blood yet to come. She'd lived fire and blood. But it was what came after all the fire and the blood which Rhaenyra I Targaryen felt most grateful for at the end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rhaenyra I Targaryen (97 AC - 150 AC)  
> Reign (131 AC - 150 AC)
> 
> Also called:  
> The Realm's Delight  
> Maegor with Teats  
> Rhaenyra 'the Fat Queen'
> 
> Hands of the Queen  
> Cregan Stark (131 AC - 139 AC)  
> Jeyne Arryn (131 AC - 142 AC)  
> Alyn Velaryon (143 AC - 145 AC)  
> Viserys Targaryen (145 AC - 150 AC)
> 
> Issue:  
> Jacaerys Velaryon (b. 114 AC) - died during Dance of Dragons  
> Lucerys Velaryon (b. 115 AC) - died during Dance of Dragons  
> Joffrey Velaryon (b. 117 AC) - died during Dance of Dragons  
> Aegon Targaryen (b. 120 AC) - succeeded to Iron Throne  
> Viserys Targaryen (b. 122 AC) - succeeded to Iron Throne  
> Visenya Targaryen (b. 129 AC) - stillborn  
> Jaenaera Blackwood (b. 131 AC) - married a Stark, settled North  
> Barba Blackwood (b. 133 AC) - inherited Raventree Hall  
> Dyana Blackwood (b. 139 AC) - married Daemon I Targaryen


	2. Aegon III Targaryen - "The Broken"

**Aegon III Targaryen - 153 AC**

Freedom. That was the only thought upon the King's mind when he rode out into the mountains by himself one last time. He remembered a lifetime before, when he and mother fled the capital, and Lady Jeyne had taken them into her home, and he'd roamed and explored this wonderful castle as if it were his new home, to be conquered. And if his mother was too busy falling in love with her newly discovered young knight, then Aegon missed her, when she disappeared into her chambers immediately after supper, and often did not emerge until midday to play the doting mother for a mere few hours. But his missed her less, because the kind Lady Jeyne had taken pity on him, and played hostess for him, and humored him while his mother was busy, reading him tales of old Arryn kings, pointing out on the maps exactly where their armies were soon to march, and drive his usurper uncle out the Red Keep and into the sea.

"Mother's still sleeping," he'd asked that morning, when Lady Jeyne had first taken him out riding.

"Her Grace," she'd begun, in what Aegon had come to realize was her diplomatic voice, "the meal last night did not sit well with her...come," she'd taken his hand innocently, and he'd recognized it as only that at the time, "Your Grace should see the true beauty of the lands he's to rule one day."

At first he'd been mesmerized by her light brown hair blowing in the gentle mountain breezes. They rode to the waterfall, Alyssa's tears, Lady Jeyne told him the fable, and he thought it was both the most beautiful sight and saddest story he'd ever heard. And while she taught him the words to the song, they rode to a small valley, where she pointed out the Giant's Lance in the distance, nearly hidden between two more proximate yet equally jagged peaks, mighty in their own right, and he'd thought that was the most beautiful sight he'd ever seen. Then they rode further up towards a high pass, until a light layer of snow crunched beneath the treading of their hooves, an unbroken line of white leading up to the high rocky stretches above them, and he could hear more waterfalls he could not see, and rocks crashing against each other in the endless heights over their heads, he tried spying the vistas hidden behind the low clouds, the crisp air smelled cleaner and more fragrant than the sweetest flowers of the south, a small nearby pond shined azure, half its surface encased in ice, and Aegon thought if he died here and now, he'd die happily.

They'd returned late to the castle that afternoon, and his mother had been fraught with worry, scolding Lady Jeyne for giving her the scare of her life, for plotting to steal her son from her. "It was wonderful," he tried to explain to his mother, "you have to come with us tomorrow, and you'll see..."

But his pleas fell on deaf ears. Thankfully, his mother forgot quickly her anger with Lady Jeyne, and for once he was thankful when she disappeared clutching Lord Benjicot's hand, a boy who was only a few years older than he, whom Aegon would've thought would be his playmate, teach him how to wield a sword so well, if his mother hadn't taken possession of him already. He'd tried to have them all join one day, his mother and even Benjicot, and let Lady Jeyne show them all the wonders of her lands, but it never happened. The years passed, and he remembered and yearned for that wondrous mountain kingdom each day, as a crown was regained, as he was given a young wife, naught but a child, as he lost that young wife, then was passed to another girl, he would not return, not until he'd finally had his way and married her.

The sun rose behind the ridge standing regally before the king and his mount, and clouds so close he could touch formed the strangest colors in the earliest moments of the dawn, changing shapes with every half second.

"Mother, Jeyne," the King whispered to himself. "Is this your doing, is the beauty you wish me to see, is this your gift to me?"

He thought of his brother, whom he missed so dearly, whom he wished stood beside him here, both of them admiring together these glorious mountains. Viserys promised to come to the Vale one day, even though Aegon knew how little he cared for such wonders, he was too busy adding one new kingdom after another to Aegon's realms.

'Oh, if only he could see this with his own eyes, then he'd understand, and we can gaze upon all this together, the last of mother and father's children.'

As sad and devastated as the young yet already twice widowed King was when he'd set out on horse that morning, while the moon still ruled the night's sky, he could not help but forget all the tragedies he'd seen through his life, because all the beauty surrounding him threatened to overwhelm his soul, so he let it have its way, carrying into the clouds, where the birds flew.

* * *

**The Citadel**

If a man were to find the ghost of Aegon the Conqueror and present him with a simple listing of the achievements of the three descendants of his who would survive the Dance of Dragons to sit on the Iron Throne: Rhaenyra I, annexed Lys and its territories, Viserys II, conquered Volantis, or Aegon III, whose short reign in between his mother and brother saw Dorne finally bending the knee to the Iron Throne, one could surmise that the Conqueror would smile upon the achievements of his namesake, because Aegon I Targaryen had not cared about the Free Cities, after all, hadn't he looked westwards into the future of his dynasty, rather than its past? Hadn't his most beloved sister died trying to subjugate the southern kingdom, hadn't he claimed to be the king of the Rhoynar long after his last conquest had failed, and any dominion over Dorne was in fact, nothing more than a whimsical fantasy?

But truly even in these modern days, Aegon III Targaryen, the Broken King, is seen with some fascination as the man who, if he hadn't actually conquered Dorne himself, saw under his reign the fruition of a hundred year old Targaryen dream come into reality, a vision that very well predates the Targaryen dynasty itself, from Maesters who, under the Gardener kings, envisioned one continent under the control of one man and one crown. Yet these events are so intricately connected that one cannot mention one without the other, one cannot bring up causation without the citing of its historical neighbors. If it was Viserys II Targaryen who 'finished the job', so to speak, of the eastward colonization begun in his mother's reign, it had been Rhaenyra I Targaryen who, along with her close friend and sometime rival Jeyne Arryn, had turned the eyes of the dragon eastwards in the first place.

Both women had extremely disparate motives. Before she'd secured herself a place in the history books as Aegon III's elderly wife and Queen, the Lady Paramount of the Vale had been much more intent upon securing her own succession, made difficult by her decision to remain childless and unwed until long after she could have physically borne children. Queen Rhaenyra's motives were far simpler, to defend and carry the torch for the Rogare family, having quickly elevated the future Queen Larra as one of her favorites after the young beauty's arrival in the Red Keep. If additionally pressed by her son Viserys at the time on the subject of Lys, the future king's contributions to that first expansionist effort would not have amounted to much, for the annexation occurred in 135 AC, when her younger son was still a boy of three and ten.

When the next war occurred five years later in 140 AC, the ostensible reason was Aegon II Targaryen's long delayed and final attempt to regain the crown he'd lost during the Dance of Dragons. But behind the immediate facets of the war lay deeper motives which had nothing to do with the 'King who Fled', grudges and rivalries which predated even the Targaryen dynasty itself, as well as a new long plan, begun by an increasingly active Prince Viserys, now six and ten and an active part in his mother's government, though it would be several more years before he'd take his first seat on the Small Council as Master of Coin.

Volantis saw in the recent breakup of the Kingdom of the Three Daughters a chance to regain their former glory and dominion over the three southwestern Free Cities. The possession of a former Targaryen King in exile was an advantage they sought to press, though exactly how, few knew or, more importantly, agreed upon. At leach one Triarch through each year's elections called for Aegon II to be expelled, returned to King's Landing in chains, with or without his head, it depended, so as to avoid the ire of the Iron Throne. But there was never agreement in full, with often the more aggressive faction prevailing, especially so after the annexation of Lys. After that, the directive given to each successive set of Triarchs was clear. The Targaryens had to be expelled from Essos, at the very least, on this even the peace inclined Elephant faction agreed, though they favored action through diplomacy, while the greedier Tiger faction imagined the possibilities of Volantis, Lys, and the Iron Throne united as one against their remaining enemies, Myr, Tyrosh, and whatever other territories the would be tiger conquerors envisioned.

Supported by First Triarch Gerys Qordon, Aegon II's chief patron from the very beginning, slowly using his famous guest to build his reputation and wealth, 'The Great Tiger' won elections year after year for an unprecedented fourteen straight years, carrying on his back the unprecedented success unseen by the Tigers in the history of the ancient city. By 137 AC, similar to his late Rogare counterpart in Lys, Gerys set himself up as sole Triarch for life, and with all three Triarch seats occupied by Tigers, a remarkable feat, Gerys openly prepared the city for war. The problem was, however, that not only was Westeros prepared for the war, not only had they been openly goading on Gerys and the Tigers, they'd been the ones creating in the first place the conditions which gave the Tigers their previously unseen political power in the first place.

Not that the Volantene aristocracy were blind or dumb by any means, it must be assumed that Triarch Gerys and his supporters played the Targaryen game willingly, in order to amass power, before entering into a war they assumed they could win.

Like her fellow Hand depending on the season, Cregan Stark, Jeyne Arryn had little urge for further adventuring in Essos after securing her aims after the Lysene Annexation. The exact date and circumstances are unknown, but at some point between 135 and 136 AC, one must assume a secret deal was struck between the Lady of the Vale and the young Prince Viserys, whose true ambitions for the next war lay not with Volantis or the former lands of the Rhoynar, but the kingdom they'd emigrated to, and the final incorporation of Dorne into the fold of the seven kingdoms.

Land and history were his weapons to lure Princess Aliandra Martell, conveniently his relative through marriage with the Rogares, willingly into the conspiracy. With the Winter Wolves having only settled the southern coasts of the continent opposite the island of Lys, bestowing upon their newly founded ports and cities such uninspired names as Summerfell, Warmwinter and Wintersummer, it was Viserys who convinced his mother and her council to issue to Sunspear the invitation to help settle, then govern, the fertile easternmost lands at the boundary of the Lysene disputed territories...conveniently close to the traditional homeland of the Dornish, the Mother Rhoyne, that the fabled Queen Nymeria had vacated to escape the dragonlords of yesteryear.

Boat sailed unlanded Dornish sons and bastards eastward by the thousands, Princess Aliandra began openly speaking of restoring the ruins of Ny Sar to its former glory, and the encroaching Rhoynar threat predictably whipped the Volantene populace in a frenzy, and coin was sent all throughout Essos for mercenaries for the Volantene/Green cause and militarization. The Volantenes believed as well that they'd acquired a valuable ally behind the shores of Westeros, Lord Unwin Peake, a powerful Marcher lord who'd been the very price the Iron Throne paid for Arryn support.

The marriage of Jeyne Arryn to Prince Aegon is certainly one of the more curious historical oddities, made possible only through the rarest combination of circumstances and coincidences. The horrors of the Dance of Dragons, which cost the young Aegon three of his half brothers, fooled him to have believed his favorite brother Viserys dead, combined with his frightful escape from the capital to the Vale of Arryn had left the young Prince, always a gentle child kind of heart from the beginning, terribly meek and shy by the time he neared his maturity. Aside from Gaemon Palehair he'd had no friends in court until Viserys's return. His first young wife Jaehaera he'd become fond of, though she'd been far too young for him to love romantically, but her premature death of the winter's fever left yet another scar upon the young man's fragile soul.

By the time of his betrothal to the Lady Myrielle Peak in 136 AC, the young Prince sought the solace of only three people in court: that of his mother, his brother Viserys, and Jeyne Arryn, who'd treated him kindly during his exile of less than a year in the Eyrie. Apparently those moons spent in the cold mountain castle seemed to be the sole happy memories of his childhood he could now recall, and upon hearing of his second betrothal, the boy threw a fit and insisted the only wife he'd have from now on would be the Lady Arryn, a woman three years older than his mother.

While Lord Unwin was known to have taken great offense by the boy's tantrums, most in the court ignored the boy's outbursts, or laughed at his childish notions. Then came Aegon's 'rebellions', the most spirit ever shown by the broken king in his relatively short life. Somehow eluding his mother's Queensguard, the young man ran away from the castle mere days before his wedding to Lady Myrielle, hoping to make it all the way to the Eyrie as a grand gesture of love for its lady. He made it as far as the Dragon's Gate, causing much embarrassment for the Queen and her whitecloaks. Caught, he then threatened to starve himself, and went several days without food until the guards held him down and forced a heavy bowl of broth down his throat. Finally he appealed to his brother and last confidante, swearing that he'd jump from the highest windows of the castle before marrying his intended wife.

His mother was embarrassed, and even Viserys recalled to confidantes later in his life about feeling horrible for the young and pleasant, if not beautiful, Myrielle Peake (not that Jeyne Arryn was a great beauty by that point of her life, though she'd always been described as a handsome woman, but clearly Prince Aegon's need to marry her came from some deeper and stranger deep seated, latent trauma, rather than simple physical or romantic attraction). Seeing the opportunity for his grand plans for Dorne even then, Viserys proposed allowing Aegon to carry out with his preferred marriage, then binding Myrielle to his own son and heir, Jaehaerys. Considering Lady Arryn's age, Myrielle would still be sure to be crowned Queen one day, if much further down the road than Lord Unwin intended.

The Lord of Starpike rejected the offer in a rash move born of anger, leaving the capital in a huff and betrothing his daughter within the moon to Orys Florent, the young heir to Brightwater Keep. He'd come to regret both actions later, but what was done was done, and a potential alliance with a powerful lord and former enemy of the Queen's during the Dance helped sow the seeds for the very rebellion Viserys was seeking to foment, luckily enough for the latter.

As to why Jeyne Arryn, believed by most then and now to have preferred the company of women, would agree to marry a spoiled, if soon to be powerful Targaryen heir, her reasoning seems simple enough. Though her succession was buffered by her actions during the Annexation of Lys, it wasn't secured entirely, so the vows of the Queen her new goodmother, her husband the future king, and the future Viserys II Targaryen to support Joffrey Arryn's claim after her death came as no surprise. There was too the added fact that the prospect of a crown for herself and the pride of bringing House Arryn its second Queen of the Iron Throne could have proved too great a temptation even for the most stubborn and independent of women, the only price having to marry a man whom, if she never lusted for, was far from the worst of men she could marry, but such concerns surely proved secondary to her treasured succession.

So Prince Aegon had the bride he wanted. The newly married royal couple embarked for the Vale not long after what was said to have been a rather awkward marriage ceremony amongst the courtesans. Eleven moons later Lady Jeyne returned to serve in court, even as her young husband remained in the Eyrie, where he was said to have spent more time in than his wife for the duration of their lives and marriage together. Indeed, it was more chance than intent that Aegon was present in the capital when his mother died, having traveled for the Queen's nameday feast two moons before. The new king mourned his mother, presided glumly over her funeral, and sat on the Iron Throne long enough only for the High Septon to place his mother's crown upon his silver brow, and the winged crown of Queen Aemma's upon his wife's already graying mane, before they'd returned again to the Eyrie together.

Indeed, when Aliandra Martell came to King's Landing to bend the knee and receive the title of the Princess of the Rhoyne, it was Prince Viserys she'd met, rather than his king and brother, who'd only arrived for a cursory greeting of his newest subject before returning north within the year. Irony being what it was, though she'd helped Queen Rhaenyra rule the realm before, by the time she'd been crowned Aegon's Queen, Jeyne's influence in court had waned to the point where she, like her husband, saw little need for any presence in the capital. The tentative partnership she'd formed with the then young Viserys, to press aggressively the Dornish colonization of Lysene lands all the way down into the Rhoyne Valley, at the expense of all the other would claimers of the Lysene spoils, had long broken down once the future king's influence became complete by the last years of his mother's reign.

Not that their political breakup was acrimonious by any means, according to all contemporary accounts. The fact was, both parties had gotten exactly what they wanted out of their alliance. Queen Jeyne retained a position as Mistress of Law until her death in 153 AC, and the new king Viserys II Targaryen soon made clear that he would go to war unless Eldric Arryn of Gulltown stood down. As to Viserys, Jeyne Arryn gave him the breathing room to goad Volantis into war for the sake of Aegon II's claim.

Many tomes have been dedicated solely to the subject of Aegon's Rebellion, and a detailed elaboration of that war would not serve the purpose of this chronicle. Suffice to say, Aegon II and Unwin Peake's plan was to harass the crown with a rebellion of secondary lords from all across the land, including his own as well as Florents, Crakehalls, Redforts, Brackens, Boltons in the north, and so forth, while the main invasion landed by the Wendwater not far from King's Landing. The war would have been a much more difficult task had Ben Blackwood's banners not swarmed from kingdom to kingdom with almost inhuman speed, putting down each rebellion in turn, capturing the usurper at Tumbleton, then swiftly sailing eastwards to deliver the Volantenes a brutal defeat below the walls of their proud city.

The concession of all the lands of the upper and lower Rhoyne from Ny Sar to within fifty leagues of Volantis, as part of the peace agreement, Viserys passed along to Aliandra Martell and the Dornish settlers, to the consternation of many in Westeros, though rebellion was far from the minds of even the most disgruntled after Lord Benjicot's display of prowess. The official reason for such generosity was gratitude for Dornish support in the war, where Princess Aliandra led personally the army which defeated the Peake and Florent armies at Nightsong. But the masterful Prince fed knowingly Dornish greed and ambitions, pushing his new ally towards a reckless path in Essos, and an inevitable conflict between the Martells and Volantis, a powerful an ancient city bearing not just a powerful grudge, but an existential threat upon its very lifeline.

When the next war approached, it would be Dorne going to the Iron Throne to beg for help. Few except Viserys expected any immediate Volentene resurgence in 141 AC, when Aegon II Targaryen burned and Volantis suffered its unspeakable humiliation. Triarch for life Gerys was torn apart by a mob trying to escape the city, and the Elephant faction ruled entirely for the remainder of Volantis's independence. Except the Elephants, under the wily patriarch Aenar Maegyr, were no longer so pacific, plotting for the next decade and a half their revenge upon both the Targaryens and the Martells.

By the time Aegon III ascended the throne in 150 AC, the Volantene recovery, amplified by alliances with Tyrosh and Myr, could no longer be ignored. Recognizing the threat, yet not willing to give up on their new/old lands, twice Sunspear did appeal to the Iron Throne for an alliance to crush their common enemy before it could materialize fully. Viserys rejected both offers, first on behalf of his mother, then Aegon, citing the fact that when he'd given Dorne the Rhoynar territories, he'd expected Dorne to take full responsibility for them, else he would've planted the flags of the dragons instead.

No doubt Princess Aliandra recognized sooner than later that she'd been outplayed. Yet, as Viserys expected, the Princess decided that losing for her people the Mother Rhoyne for a second time was a far more terrifying disgrace than having to bend the knee to the Targaryen throne. So the accord was reached, the Martells receiving generous terms for their peaceful submission, including the retaining of their royal titles, and an autonomy to rule their own lands no different from the freedoms the Starks enjoyed in the north. "A kingdom for a kingdom," the Princess is said to have muttered to the Prince, succinctly summarizing a deal on which she could at least claim she'd broken even, on behalf of her people.

Suddenly Volantis found itself less eager to make war, yet their days were numbered anyhow. As always, Viserys played the long game, one which would, alas, outlive the lifespan of his brother...

* * *

**Jeyne Arryn - 152 AC**

It was strange that, at eight and fifty years of age, the Queen, reigning Lady of the Vale, and titular Mistress of Laws still did not really know what exactly she wanted out of her long life. Sitting in the Small Council room, she could claim to Viserys without a second that that she wanted to leave King's Landing as soon as convenient to return home. Certainly that would please her king and husband, who'd come to love her homeland more than she did, except, now that she had returned to the capital, Queen Jeyne thought that she would prefer to stay a little longer. The women were prettier here, their perfumes smelled sweeter, the hustle and bustle of the courtiers, even the occasional waft of shit and garbage blowing up the castle from down in Flea Bottom...life was just so much more livelier in King's Landing than the Eyrie.

"...and Prince Doran of Wreckstone," her husband's Hand continued, reading from his endless scrolls. Looking up, he glanced listlessly at Aliandra Martell. "I'm to assume you'd prefer your brother remained pledged to you?"

"It would be appreciated, Your Grace." She was a beauty, Jeyne thought. Clever enough, from what she had gathered, but not clever enough to outsmart Viserys Targaryen. That, or she'd suspected otherwise, but let her ambition get the better of her, an experience not unfamiliar to Jeyne herself.

"Tariff revenues will proceed on to Sunspear then," Viserys continued, satisfied, "that's agreed upon..."

Looking around the chambers, she wondered where Larra was hiding herself. The future queen avoided her, no surprise to Jeyne. She had been a good lover, one of the best Jeyne ever had the pleasure of laying with, man or woman. But while Queen Jeyne did occasionally enjoy the company of a man, she'd knew that for Larra Rogare, it was she who was the rare trifling, the distraction, an occasional dessert to be enjoyed after the main course that was her husband.

'Or it's just me,' Jeyne thought to herself honestly. 'I've grown too old for her, and if she wants to lie with a woman, it's to be with someone younger and prettier.'

Say what she wanted about Aegon, he never tired of her. Not that he was a particularly lusty man anyway, and that suited her just fine, so long as they sat in the same room together, the King seemed satisfied, and only occasionally did the appetites of his more voracious mother surface in the king to make their demands of her, rare enough were those occasions that she'd enjoyed them for what they were. Same as the beautiful Larra tolerated the pinings of a lusty old woman, Jeyne figured.

"I'm to marry again," Aliandra interrupted, though Jeyne thought that she looked to her direction when she spoke.

'Does she know,' Jeyne wondered. Of course she did, most in the know suspected, and she wondered if it would be too untoward to approach privately Viserys's newest and most treasured addition to the Small Council and to the realm. Would the Prince have her head, if she lost Dorne for him on the count of desiring some dark and exotic cunny?

"A good family," Viserys asked, unperturbed. When Aliandra's Rogare husband died, Larra's uncle, the widowed Dornish Princess, childless, yet young enough to bear children still, lost her familial ties with the heir to the seven kingdoms, truly seven now, Jeyne acknowledged. Yet it did not matter, caught as deep as she already was in Viserys's intricate webs.

"Davos Dayne," the princess answered coldly, with no affection in her voice at all. "Third son, High Hermitage, not Starfall, so you don't have to worry about any troubling inheritances."

'Gods,' she thought, unable to help herself, 'that accent. How does she scream, when in the throes of passion?'

"Inherit what you'd like, the affairs in Dorne are entirely yours, you have my promise on that."

"Ask old Cregan how little he hears from us up in Winterfell," Jeyne added, trying her best to sound aloof, "hells, take for yourself one of the old Targaryen crowns, if you like, to bring back to Sunspear."

"So long as I bend the knee," Aliandra replied with a wink, "is that right, Your Grace?"

"I'll allow Maegor's," Viserys added, the smallest curl upon his lips. This dragon wasn't entirely humorless, but Jeyne knew that, from years of working with him, including the ones where she was the Hand, and he merely a Master of Coin.

If many in court still thought his wife a witch, then half of them probably believed Viserys a sorcerer. He wasn't a bad person, but that did not mean he was one not to be frightened of, if the reasons were there. Even Aegon understood that, when her first and only pregnancy at the age of two and forty, almost immediately after their marriage, had surprised them both. The news would have proved devastatingly for Viserys, if he found out, which was why they fled to the Eyrie, and she'd been almost relieved when her son died stillborn. And yet she still did suspect Viserys had a hand in it, that he could have reached invisibly into her womb and poisoned the child who would've stolen his crown, except that would be impossible, wouldn't it?

Unless the stories they whispered of dark magics were indeed true.

"What do you think of her," the Prince confided in her after the meeting.

"Clever," the Queen answered. "Defeated, knowing of it, accepting of it, yet still wary. But she has reason to be."

"Hells, I'll give her Volantis once it's taken even, I don't care, if the Maegyrs act up."

"Anything for Dorne," she said, repeating those ancient words uttered so long ago by a much younger Viserys, begging her to take his older brother as her bride. "What is it with you dragons, and that kingdom. Failure doesn't sit well with Targaryens, does it? You'd lose Volantis, you'd lose Lys too, they'd offer you all of Essos, all the Free Cities and old Ghiscari Empire, and you'd probably still turn that down if Dorne were the price, wouldn't you?"

"Not Lys."

Of course not. For all any could say about Viserys, he loved his wife deeply, he never strayed from her, as far as anyone knew. Targaryens could be terrifyingly loyal sometimes, Jeyne knew this from her own husband as well, and perhaps it was that same rigid sense of loyalty, also stubbornness, two sides of the same coin for sure, that made a man like Viserys, and so many who came before him, so singularly obsessed with Dorne.

She wondered if he knew about her and Larra, their brief affair. If he did, then the man was a brilliant mummer indeed, never revealing anything to her. Larra had come to her not long after she'd lost the second child out of her womb. Jeyne never told anyone about little Willam, Aegon swore so too, yet somehow she wondered if the Lyseni woman knew, without actually knowing. Perhaps it was magic after all.

The woman was magical in bed at least. Still, she was no Jessamyn. Jeyne did not love her, like she did Jessamyn, she did not love anyone like she loved that woman, who'd never forgiven her for taking Aegon's hand in marriage. And for what? The Vale, a succession she obsessed over, on behalf of a dull and ungrateful little twat, if only because she hated her rival cousins in Gulltown more? Because she couldn't stand the idea of losing, even after her death? Because why should anyone care about their own succession anyway, they'd be dead, she'd have more to worry about whether she ended up in the heavens, or the hells, or nowhere at all.

Where was Rhaenyra now, Jeyne wondered? If the Queen's arrival at the Eyrie had saved her war, it surely changed Jeyne's life so dramatically, for better or for worse, Rhaenyra's indulgences undoubtedly lost her Jessamyn. It wasn't that the Queen was a bad mother, or that she neglected the young prince, she didn't, not knowingly anyhow. But if Rhaenyra had been suffering so deeply then as to take a boy of two and ten to bed every night, so Aegon suffered too, and he needed a mother during the night as well as the day. Jeyne could not but pity him, he'd been such a sweet boy then, he'd never lost his sweetness, else she wouldn't have given everything up to marry him, and remain with him all these years. So she'd comforted the child, treated him well, because it was the decent thing to do...and because there was no harm in trying to leave a good impression upon the heir to the throne, was there? How was she to have predicted that the impression she'd left had apparently been much deeper and lasting than she'd intended?

And damned that boy Benjicot, if Aegon didn't watch his mother marry a boy barely older than he was, then perhaps he never would have seen herself as anything more than a surrogate aunt, rather than a woman he'd desire for a wife within a few years, thinking a marriage between a woman in her forties and a boy young enough to be a squire perfectly normal. So Aegon would get what he wanted, because he was the heir. And Viserys would get everything he wanted, and then some. What about herself? She had her crown, every ambition and political goal she could have imagined realized, she had her King turning a blind eye when she picked out her fair maidens to take to bed, who'd protect his wife from slander and ill gossip as much as he could...yet she didn't have Jessamyn, not her body, not her heart, her fiery soul. Was it worth it?

"She's pretty, isn't she?" Jeyne swore Viserys nearly winked when he spoke to her. "I hear she enjoys her wine at night. And other things too, the Dornish are what they are." He let his words trail off in a lilting drawl, yet Jeyne knew that not one sound emerged from the man's mouth without the most detailed calculating behind it.

Permission granted, the prince and heir walked away. Jeyne thought she should almost feel grateful. Almost, because Viserys Targaryen still owed the crown he might wear one day to her, didn't he?

* * *

**The Citadel**

...the Queen's health recovered, and she felt well enough to go riding on a stormy afternoon in 153 AC, when she fell and her hip was crushed by her steed. Already weakened by the fevers, Jeyne Arryn passed mercifully less than half a fortnight afterwards. When Prince Viserys read the scroll telling of her death in King's Landing, he did not realize he was already king. Despondent after his beloved wife's death, Aegon III Targaryen made one last escape, eluding his Kingsguard one cold night, riding into the very same mountain valley where his wife had fallen. A furious snowstorm blew in from the Narrow Sea that morning, lasting two full days, and it was several days after the blizzard subsided before the whitecloaks found him, one last stoic, frozen upon his face. The king looked happy in death, some claimed, presumably most eager to be reunited with his beloved mother and wife in the afterlife.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aegon III Targaryen (120 AC - 153 AC)  
> Reign (150 AC - 153 AC)
> 
> Also called:  
> Aegon 'the Shy'
> 
> Hand of the King  
> Viserys Targaryen (150 AC - 153 AC)
> 
> Issue:  
> None


	3. Viserys II Targaryen - "The Wise"

**Ben Blackwood - 156 AC**

His first time marching out to war had been on the words of his father. Fealty, loyalty, truth to a man and a lord's words, and to the realm, those were concepts a young Benjicot Blackwood had accepted without much thought at the time. How to properly apply them to the war at hand, on the other hand, that confused him at first.

"But how do we know who's the rightful king and queen?"

"What powers does a king have," his father had grumbled, somewhere where the groans of the Trident rumbled nearby, 'if he can't name his heir? What right does he have to tell us about, if the realm's lords can bully a king into submission, upon his most important decision, no less, then why bother with a king at all?'

The war took his father rather quickly, and Ben fought less for his father's words at the Second Battle of Tumbleton, than for the memory of his father, so that Samwell Blackwood did not die in vain for a lost cause. Then he met and fucked and married the Queen, so he fought the rest of his first war, and the one after that, for the woman who made his body feel so good. For love? Perhaps, though he questioned himself many times whether that woman deserved love, from himself, from anyone. Such thoughts didn't stop him, of course, from imprinting his body onto hers any chance he had, until nearly her dying day.

"Think the royal prince is inclined to mercy," Oscar Tully asked beside him, while about a dozen magisters, former magisters, and other general dignitaries rode crestfallen and glum out below the foreboding dark walls of Volantis.

"Think his royal father the king has impressed him upon it," Ben replied, "whether he likes it or not."

He'd fought Aegon's Rebellion on behalf of his wife, and what a war that had been, the endless frenzy, the nights marching without sleep from one end of Westeros to another, the days and nights spent vomiting below decks, his first shaky steps upon the shores of the strange continent of Essos. Accompanied by the men of Lys, and the many northerners and Dornishmen who'd settled across the Narrow Sea after the annexation now defending their newfound homes, he'd led himself the massive cavalry charge which broke the sellsword center near the very spot where now, they were to accept Volantis's final submission to the Iron Throne.

That particular war had been five and ten years before, a lifetime it seemed, to Ben. A Queen had died in the meantime, and a King to boot. At eight and thirty years of age, he felt older than his years, and longed for the so-called War of the Rhoyne to be over. For what, he wasn't sure. To return home, to return to his life of a widower and former Lord Consort, to rule the family lands which never particularly interested him in the first place?

"Wondered if they left the whorehouses unplundered," Oscar wondered, as Aenar Maegyr, a rather handsome looking man of Rhoynar coloring, but possessing the purple eyes of some Valyrian ancestry, bent the knee before Jaehaerys Targaryen, son of King Viserys II Targaryen and Queen Larra Rogare, and heir to the seven kingdoms...and also the Free City of Lys and its shores, the lands of the Rhoyne Valley as far north as the ancient city of Ny Sar, and now Volantis, the newest addition to House Targaryen's treasuries.

"If I knew I were surrendering everything I had the next day," Ben's old friend and comrade continued, "I'd buy the entire brothel and fuck myself to death. Let them bend the knee on my corpse as they will."

"Guess I won't be seeing much of you tonight." Within twenty steps of them, the Prince placed his fingers nobly upon the surrendered magister's head, before lifting him up and taking the man who'd been his enemy mere minutes before into a warm embrace.

"Yer not coming with," Oscar asked him, disappointed.

"I probably will," Ben related. He had his needs, after all, for one does not go from being married to Rhaeynra Targaryen to celibacy overnight, if ever.

"Don't sound eager about it at all."

He chuckled softly, old memories returning to him. "Those moons we were in the Eyrie," he whispered, and Oscar gave him a very knowing wink, "when I could get it up half a dozen times a night...I'd wake up in the mornings sometimes with her dead drunk and asleep atop of me. Then the devils stir in my body, I'd rub myself to completion against wherever my sorry wee prick might have lain against her at the time. And aye...fucking the side of her hip or the top of her belly, she gave me more spirit and fight, passed out and snoring, than any whore I've been with since."

"Aye, if it's fight yer looking for, come with me and see my wife when we return to Lys. I swear, I give my coin to the madames, yet they're more loyal to her than I..."

"Well, she's a Rogare, ain't she? It's her family's city, not yours, go back to Riverrun if you want the whores to keep their mouths shut out of fealty's sake."

"Never marry a Rogare," Oscar muttered. The Prince chuckled, overhearing him even as he greeted each surrendering dignitary, finding amusement in their casual, meaningless slander regarding his mother's family. "Who'd think them even more imperious than a Targaryen Queen?"

In truth, this war had been won more by the Targaryen Prince before them, rather than the Blackwood boy who served as bride to a queen for a rather small speck of history, all things considered. Eager to avoid open battle with 'Bloody Ben' Blackwood this time around, the Volantenes fought a defensive war, and both Ben and Oscar had expected a long and weary siege before the city inevitably gave way. Then the young dragonknight arrived, having chased the last of the defeated Unsullied armies out of the hills of the upper Rhoyne. Seeing the dim lights in the harbor below, coming from the massive Velaryon fleet blockading the city, his purple eyes sparkled in the firelit night.

"Why waste men and time and boats sitting there," Jaehaerys had asked them the same night he'd arrived. "I'll take command, storm the harbor, then the city, then burn all their palaces down!"

"Good luck getting Lord Markend to agree to that," Oscar remarked.

"I'm the Prince," he'd countered without much thought. "These are my orders." Then, he looked at Ben. "Though it'd help my position for my father's Master of War to support my stand."

It was an open secret in all the kingdoms, the bad blood between the Houses Targaryen and Velaryon, caused without any doubt by the beautiful and valiant prince before Ben. It was obvious to all the court how the young Jaehaerys, even as a child, desired the beautiful wife of Alyn Velayron, the Queen's longtime Master of Ship. Whether Baela Targaryen was the prince's aunt, or cousin, Ben couldn't keep damn straight anymore, but no matter, Lady Baela's marriage with the Lord of Driftmark suffered bouts of unhappiness, same as all do. Yet, it was only a matter of time before the woman gave in to her lusty desires for the exceedingly handsome prince, half Lysene, half Valyrian, who even at a young age looked every much the embodiment of every great knight, warrior, and manhood all in one.

"Aye, I'll agree. Sieges are dull, wearisome things. I'd join you too..."

"You're needed below the walls," Jaehaerys had replied almost immediately. "The Volantene may try to counterattack, break the siege, escape for the hills."

It was a good point, but Ben wondered just how much of his decision had been made for the sake of the dragonknight not having to share any of the glory with his grandmother's vaunted husband. It had been Ben who'd knighted the Prince, with his father's blessing, at the young age of four and ten. Of course, Jaehaerys was already a married man by then, and a father as well.

Old Oakenfist died two years before the Queen's death, travelling on a ship back to Driftmark after yet another furious row with his wife, so all the court gossiped. Merely one moon later, his widow Baela announced to all the known world that she was pregnant, and that the child belonged to Jaehaerys. The Queen didn't seem to care, what was such incest, after all, to a woman who'd married her uncle, then a boy of two and ten. Quickly the two dragonseeds were married, and a child once conceived a bastard was sanctified the heir to the heir to the heir to the heir of the seven kingdoms, and Lys, and soon to be Volantis.

As a gesture of conciliation, Prince Viserys called old Markend Velaryon, a cousin of the Sea Snake's, to the capital to continue his family's service as Master of Ship, what with Lord Aiden, Baela and Alyn's eldest son, furious at his mother and refusing to leave his island home to have anything to do with the court that, it was known, had been responsible for his father's death, and that of all his crew. Not the dragonknight, of course, he was too young and pure and innocent and noble to have conceived such an ill deed, but the wicked widow, who wished to trade not just an old husband for a younger one, but more importantly, a ladyship for a place next to the Iron Throne? It'd be logical, if not for the ruthless way she'd went about obtaining what she wanted.

Glimpsing across the field, he saw a tall and dashing young man, a countenance almost as handsome as the prince's, and twice as confident. Brandon Reyne's star was rising, as his was falling, though Ben was fine with that, he never much enjoyed the glory even when he held it. Old Markend served Rhaenyra, then Aegon, and now Viserys glumly, doing his duty but little more. But the dragonknight found a kindred spirit in the young Lord of Castamere, who'd spent his early years captaining the Lannister fleets against Ironborn reavers. The Red Lion, whose dark brown hair did indeed tinge red, seconded the Battle of Volantis Harbor with his prince, and by morning Targaryen banners were firmly planted upon both sides of the grand old city's dark walls.

"He did well in war," Ben whispered to his old Tully friend. "Think he'll do well in court?"

"Better than you's for a start."

"I've no love for it. Keep me home, and call me out each time there's a war, and I'd be happy, no reason for me to stay in that stinking city since Rhaenyra died."

"Except, you haven't a choice now, have you? To keep an eye on her." Then Oscar whispered. "And him."

"Aye."

His eldest daughter Jaenaera, who took after her mother except she'd been frail all her life where the Queen was fat, they'd married to one of Lord Cregan's distant cousins in the far north, so as to fulfill the pact of ice and fire. He received letters every once in awhile, mostly from her husband, mostly regarding one sickness of hers, or another. The maesters said any childbirth would likely kill Jaenaera.

His second daughter Barba they'd married to Irwyn Oakheart, the heir to Old Oak. Barba did her duty and bore two healthy boys. The elder, Robert Oakheart, would inherit Old Oak. The younger son, Bennard Blackwood, would inherit Raventree Hall, after his mother. The marriage had turned sour, like many marriages, except Barba had an estate of her own to flee to. She tended their lands well, better than he'd ever been able to, the incomes making him a rich man even as he strove not to fall asleep during all the endless Small Council meetings. She was the best of their children but, both he and Rhaenyra could admit this, not their favorite.

That was Dyana, their youngest, their wild child, a miracle of the Mother's, born to the Queen at the age of two and forty. Though her hair was light brown, like his mother's, of all their daughters, she had the most Targaryen fire inside her heart, and sometimes Ben thanked the Seven the dragons were gone, because Dyana on a dragon would be...something indeed. As their youngest, there'd never been any hurry for Dyana to marry, though he'd talks with many families including the Lannisters, Tarly's, and even the Bracken's. In hindsight, he wondered if he should have pressed harder.

At the age of six and ten, the fair maiden Dyana Blackwood became Prince Jaehaerys's lover. She was far too young, except what could Ben say to either of the besotted couple, considering his own sordid history, sticking his sorry wee prick into the Queen long before he'd grown hair on his balls. Prince Jaehaerys was merely three years older than Dyana, a proper age for her, unlike so many recent royal couples of note, and they would have made a grand King and Queen one day indeed, beautiful, handsome, beloved together by the court and the realm...except the Prince was already married to a woman he'd fallen out of love with, just as quickly as their affair began.

Where had he been all this time? North, paying Winterfell a rare visit to see Jaenaera. He'd ridden as fast as he could back to the capital upon hearing the news, but by then the decision had already been made, the Prince having betrothed his mistress to his son Daemon, a boy of six at the time. Long having learned the court protocol, he'd grinned, bowed, and gave them all his blessing. Later, he'd sought out the King gently, to reason, not to argue.

"It's for her own good," Viserys II Targaryen muttered to him, painfully clasping his brow between his long, bony fingers. "You want a woman like Baela plotting against your daughter?"

'When she'd already plotted the deaths of her first husband and crew,' that was what Viserys did not say to him.

"What's to keep her from doing so anyhow?"

"Baela's under no illusions," Viserys said thoughtfully, yes, it was so clear that the wise young king had thought everything so thoroughly through already. "The marriage is what it is. Whether she regrets it or not, I can't even tell. But what's done is done, and she'll salvage a crown upon her head for all her sins, if nothing else. Marrying Dyana to Daemon means your daughter can never usurp Baela's crown. That'll save her life. And yours, for the matter."

The threat did not go unnoticed by Ben.

"Most men would be happy," the King tried placating him. "Your line with my mother will inherit the crown one day."

"I never cared about that."

"Funny how things work out," was the king's reply, with a wry grin upon his face, already aged beyond his years. He rose, and paced the small room. "I tried to talk Jaehaerys into sending her home. Any girl, I'd argued, except Lord Blackwood's daughter. But he refused." The king bore his deep purple eyes, so intelligent and intent and conniving, at a stepfather who was only four years older than he. "War's coming with Volantis, Lord Blackwood, and soon. I can't have my own house on fire when it happens. You need lead the war. Prince Jaehaerys needs to lead the war. The two of you need to do it together, for the good of the realm."

"Aye," he'd replied, having no choice but to stand straight, the meek and obedient vassal. "I swore a vow to your mother before she died, that I'd protect and serve all who came after her. King Aegon, yourself, Prince Jaehaerys, I'll look after his back the best I can out in Essos."

"Good luck with that," Viserys said, a lame attempt to keep the tone light. Ben nodded stiffly.

"He'll be a force to be reckoned with for sure." The King sat back down, instantly slouching, giving Lord Blackwood permission to leave. He stepped away, but then turned to speak one last word at his king. "I vowed to protect all of her...Queen Rhaenyra's descendants. Princess Dyana Blackwood is her daughter, so I'm sworn to watch after her also."

The king nodded wearily, respecting his threat, both men hoping it would come to naught. And so the war came within the year, a short war which was ending before his eyes now. Within a few moons he'd be back in that stinking heap of filth they called a city, and it frightened him so much, knowing that the last battles of his life would probably be fought not before hostile city walls or across open fields of battle, but under the roofs of the wretched castle he'd called home ever since he'd won the Dance of Dragons for a woman whose shadow he would never leave.

* * *

**The Citadel**

...where Volantis had been eager for war during Aegon's Rebellion, so the Targaryen crown had been the aggressors in the War for the Rhoyne. The grand old city had nowhere to look except its ancient enemies for help...Myr, Tyrosh, Qohor near the head of the Rhoyne. But none came, because King Viserys was too prudent to let it happen. Framing the war not as one of conquest or expansion, but simple retribution for Volantis's role in harboring and supporting Aegon II, he signed treaties with all proximate free cities, agreeing on borders, promising to respect their sovereignty, swearing upon the responsibility to reign in his vassal settlers were they to expand beyond the treaty's defined boundaries.

The King remained true to his word through the remainder of his lifetime and reign, avoiding any further conflict, dedicating endless hours towards pacifying and stabilizing the empire he'd built over the decades spanning his mother and brother's reigns, into his own. The war brought new heroes and new voices into the governance of the realm. Like all the Great Houses in Westeros, like the Rogares in Lys, House Maegyr retained their lives and positions once they bent the knee to the Iron Throne. In fact, the King went one step further, abolishing the magistrate and their elections, naming Aenar Maegyr and his descendants by right the Lord Paramounts of Volantis, so that the governance of the east would vary little from the west, in name at least.

Brandon Reyne soon took Markend Velaryon's place as Master of Ship, while Taelon Maegyr, Lord Aenar's younger brother, found himself called to the capital to serve as Master of Coin, giving each Free City under the crown a place at the Small Council. Loreon Lannister was named Master of Laws, ending the decades of tension following the Dance of Dragons, in which the great lords of the west had been ignored so that the rewards could be distributed to the great houses who'd supported Queen Rhaenyra in the Dance.

Two minor rebellions supporting imposters to the late Daeron Targaryen, son of Aegon II, were easily quashed, the efforts never gaining more than a thousand or so unhappy peasantry. Sensing the complicity of local septons in the rebellions, still chafing against with their foreign Valryian overlords, the King made a grand proclamation against the vile sins which predated his mother's reign, though more out of happenstance.

First, the King outlawed the practice of polygamy throughout the realm, applicable to the Crown on down. Many zealots would have yawned, saying the act was overdue, except his next proclamation was more monumental: marriage between brothers and sisters were to be made illegal and anathema to the Crown as well, royal blood or not, permanently ending the practice begun by his ancestor Aegon I 'The Conqueror', and before that. (Ironically, it would be his descendants under the Stark banner upon the Iron Throne who would accidentally and temporarily revive this practice almost two centuries afterwards, though with far worse recriminations from the Faith).

Though the move risked multiplying future generations of Targaryen princelings and claimants, the King believed, accurately enough, that many of them would resettle and seek their fortunes in the east. As to his two surviving children, Viserys was not concerned, as Prince Jaehaerys and Princess Rhaenyra were have said to despised each other before either one of them could speak...

* * *

**Viserys II Targaryen - 164 AC**

He had not seen his Larra this happy in a long time. If much of his life had been devoted to securing his empire, then what little remained of his time had spent keeping his very temperamental wife as happy as content as he could, though they could both admit he'd done a far from perfect job of it. If he'd brought Dorne into the realm out of duty, and Volantis because of Dorne, Lys was purely for Larra's sake, to keep her family in power, so that she would not despair as she had, when news came of her father's demise, accompanied by warnings of a complete collapse of everything built by Lysandro Rogare in one lifetime. His mother's efforts to keep the city under the Rogare's folds had contented Larra at the very least, even if she had not jumped for joy and embraced them both out of gratitude.

There were happy days, and there were rough days. The happiest, they both agreed in those long hours on the ship, had been when their children were young, before the two jewels of their eye began fighting and hating one another.

The worst they left unsaid. When their daughter Shaera emerged from the womb stillborn, it was a blow, but such things were not uncommon even in the richest of families, though the blow was made harder considering how the same fate had befallen their eldest son Aegon. Their last child Maekar was born healthy two years after, to their great relief, because they did worry after Aegon and Shaera, but the boy, who resembled Larra the most, had been taken by the horrible Tyroshi fever before he'd reached four years of age.

It wasn't long after that when Larra took her first lover. Always her serving girls, and Viserys tolerated them, because they seemed to make her happy, and because he understand better than most the differences between the heart's affections, and the body's. He did not know what he would have done had he learned that it was a knight or squire or old lord who shared his wife's bed while he toiled at the Small Council, the picture of old Jeyne Arryn wrapping her pale, sickly arms around Larra's frail body bad enough for him to not contemplate.

Though she'd learnt to be careful enough by then not to voice her truest feelings to the Queen, her friend and patron, in private Larra blamed his mother, claiming she'd cursed their family when she'd ordered her half brother Aegon's burning, spilling the blood of kin, claiming that it was Aegon's ghost who'd murdered their youngest child, never mind the fact that Maekar hadn't even been born when Aegon Targaryen, Second of his Name, burned.

"She's beautiful, isn't she," he whispered to the Queen, as they watched their daughter take the vows required of her as First Magistress of Lys. It'd cut him deeply like nothing else to hear her named around court as Rhaenyra 'the Ugly', and it hurt him even more to hear whispers that it had been none but Jaehaerys who'd begun and instigated such slurs. None of these vile whisperers dared speak such slanders directly to him, or Larra, but surely they reached Rhaenyra's ears nevertheless, and at a young age at that.

"She's done well," Larra replied, accent still thick upon her voice. He'd come to love it, as part of her, a sign of the defiance which made her who she was. "She should be..."

"Shh," he warned. "No need to ruin a good moment."

Larra loved Jaehaerys. Larra loved Rhaenyra more, she'd made less a secret of that over the years, not that their eldest son cared, he stood too far above such sentiments, such need by then. Where Jaehaerys was valiant and brave, Rhaenyra was a bottomless pit of ambition and determination, insisting on barging in to her father's Small Council meetings by the time she was twelve years of age. Everyone else found it cute, so after kicking his daughter out a dozen times he'd learned to accept the girl's presence, sitting and listening intently from a small corner upon the floor, while old men and women spoke empty words to merely to hear themselves speak.

Rhaenyra would never sit on the Iron Throne, and it killed him that he could never give his daughter what she coveted the most. It wasn't like he could usurp a great house to appoint her Lady Paramount or Warden in their place, but thankfully Rhaenyra was half a Rogare. At the age of six and ten, the same year his brother died and he'd taken the throne, Viserys sent his daughter to Lys as ward to First Magister Moredo Rogare, Larra's brother. Larra went too, and stayed for several years. He did not like her leaving, and in the darkest hours of the night despaired that she may never return, yet there was work to lose himself in, for he still had Volantis to take and Dorne to keep pacified, after all.

"You should name her Queen of Lys." She could not help but chide him, even in their best moments. He'd rather listen to her voice, its beauty not faded with age, like the rest of her, than go years without hearing or seeing her again. She'd only returned once he'd agreed to name Moredo his Hand after the war, giving the Rogares two seats on the Small Council while pissing off the rest of the realm for some time. But the winning of Dorne and Volantis gave him breathing room, gave his reign prestige, so he could rule with a freer hand than most, for a time at least. Moredo's absence left Lys in the hands of Rhaenyra in all but name, and Lys prospered, enough for Moredo to name a Targaryen niece his chosen successor to preside over the city. It helped that none in Lys forgot that the daughter of King Viserys was half Rogare herself. Same as her older brother, who would rule over them all one day.

Would his two surviving children hate each other as much, he'd wondered over the many years, had their two youngest children lived? Had Larra not despaired so much in those years, and had he not spent what spare time he had tending to his wife than his brood? In his deepest heart, he could admit how he wished Rhaenyra had been born first. Jaehaerys was a soldier at heart, and soldiers don't make the best kings, else they'd crown Ben Blackwood and place his stepfather upon the Iron Throne. Yet why else did they fight the great war of the dragons, if not for the principle that the eldest child inherits the throne, regardless of sex? What precedent would he set by pushing Jaehaerys aside now, what chance did any elder daughter have against a younger brother in the generations to come, if the rights of an eldest son could not even be respected by the son of the woman who'd emerged victorious in the Dance?

"You know your people better than me," the king whispered to his wife. "Would they ever accept a queen? Or king, for the matter."

The Queen shook her head. "Not now. But ever? Yes."

Her purple eyes glinted brightly in the sun when she spoke, and he remembered Larra when they'd both been impossibly young. The night of their wedding, when they did not share a language, and could only communicate through half grunts and hand gestures, he remembered how she'd been just as nervous and anxious as he, upon their wedding bed, despite the fact that she was very much a woman by then. When they'd sailed to King's Landing, and she'd cried for days, forced to leave her home, and he'd held her, a mere boy trying to console his pregnant wife, and she'd let him comfort her, and he'd thought he loved her, and swore to never let her go.

"Think she'll accept our son as her king, when the day comes?"

Larra frowned. The Prince of Dragonstone was predictably absent. No one excepted him to come witness his sister's moment of glory, least of all his family, and Viserys had a feeling that if Jaehaerys did come to Lys, not even a King could keep his daughter from killing him before he left the island, one way or another.

"That depends on whether our son is smarter than he is today, when the day comes."

"He will be," Viserys swore, like he swore to all things. To keeping Lys for Larra's sake. To taking Dorne, to subjugating Volantis.

Yet he wondered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Viserys II Targaryen (122 AC - 176 AC)  
> Reign (153 AC - 176 AC)
> 
> Also called:  
> Viserys 'the Great'  
> Viserys 'the Conniving'
> 
> Hands of the King  
> Lyonel Hightower (153 AC - 157 AC)  
> Moredo Rogare (157 AC - 163 AC)  
> Lotho Rogare (163 AC - 165 AC)  
> Borris Manderly (165 AC - 170 AC)  
> Lyonel Tyrell (170 AC - 176 AC)
> 
> Issue:  
> Aegon Targaryen (b. 135 AC) - stillborn  
> Jaehaerys Targaryen (b. 136 AC) - succeeded to Iron Throne  
> Rhaenyra Targaryen (b. 137 AC) - succeeded to Iron Throne  
> Shaera Targaryen (b. 140 AC) - stillborn  
> Maekar Targaryen (b. 142 AC) - died of fever at age of 3


	4. Jaehaerys II Targaryen - "The Wicked"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This following chapter will contain material that many may consider to be triggering.
> 
> I added a few tags to the story, including "the author disapproves" tag, above. I'll be blunt, I absolutely CONDEMN what is about to occur in this coming chapter. Yet, it's a story about Targaryens, so let's hope this is the worst of it.

**Baela Targaryen - 177 AC**

She used to hate the girl. Now she merely pitied the woman.

"Do you think His Grace will let me ride the dragon, after he hatches?"

"Of course, dear Dyana. You'll soar so high..."

The woman who'd ridden a dragon herself into battle at the age of four and ten, maiming Sunfyre and crippling its royal rider, did her best to comfort her broken gooddaughter. They were alike in many ways, both having fallen for the same handsome mask worn by the once gallant Jaehaerys the Dragonknight, beloved of all the realm. Both knew what it was like to be discarded, yet remain in love with the man, still seeking his approval, his touch, his mercy and passion. Baela finally fell out of her spell for the last time perhaps six or seven years before, and it was only then when she'd stopped hating Dyana Blackwood, the first woman to steal her husband's eye away from herself, though far from the last. But Gods, the wretched woman was a pitiful sight, and Baela hated pitying her former rival, and yearned for the days when she'd simply cursed her away as an evil whore and cunt.

"Come, dear Dyana, let's find Daemon before supper."

Had Alyn been a better husband, more devoted to his wife and children than his travels, none of this would have happened. Jaehaerys had loved her from the beginning, a pure love, before he'd discovered the lust that was to grip the helm of his body and mind for the rest of his life, and beyond the finer points of sanity. That was fine, there was nothing with a married woman denying even the Dragonknight, it could have stayed that way had she been content in her marriage, like Rhaena was with her first husband, or head over heels in love like newlyweds, like Rhaena remained with her second even now. She and Alyn had their good moments, but damn the dragonblood in her veins, when she hated him, she hated him with the fury of ten thousand suns.

Not that she could have ever killed him or ordered his death, even when she wished for it in the worst of times. Did the court really believe her a witch, that she possessed the ability to create treacherous storms hundreds of leagues away through willpower alone, furious enough to sink a ship captained by old Oakenfist himself, second in repute only to the Sea Snake? Were that the case, then Jaehaeys II Targaryen may have never even lived long enough to wear his crown. But once she heard the awful whispers, that's she'd kill her own husband, and hundreds of his crew, they merely infuriated her into silence, because the girl who rode Moondancer into certain death lived above the opinions of such mindless rabble. 'Let them think what they think,' she'd thought naively then, though she was a woman grown, 'so long as I have my husband and future king standing beside me.'

"...Daemon doesn't think the dragon will hatch," the poor, deranged woman continued to ramble beside her. "I tell him, you must believe the King, he is your lord, he is your father, his dragon may be yours one day, it'll be ours..."

Freshly widowed, she'd married Jaehaerys before Daemon protruded far enough in her belly to be noticed. In hindsight, marrying a boy two decades younger than her was an obvious mistake. Yet, it worked well enough for old Rhaenyra, didn't it? And poor Aegon remained infatuated with old Jeyne to the very end, even when the woman felt disgust at the mere sight of her husband, so why wouldn't her beautiful Jaehaerys remain loyal and faithful to her till her dying day, pampering her and serenading her with song even after her hair had gone gray?

Their first years together were blissful indeed. More than that, they were days where it seemed she could subsist on pride alone, strutting through court as if she'd snagged the greatest prize in all the world, enough to, if not forget her children with Alyn, then at least dismiss in her mind their hatred and resentment of her new life. Being Queen had never entered her mind before, else she would have pressed her stepmother to marry her half-brother Aegon after Jaehaera's death, no, the only prize that mattered were the affections of the dragonknight, a crown merely a trinket or toy which accompanied his glorious body.

Then, while she was pregnant with Aelor, Dyana Blackwood arrived in court. Jaehaerys took the young maiden brazenly without any sense of discretion, as if it was his right as heir to the throne, not an entirely incorrect supposition. Then he betrothed Dyana to their son without even asking her permission, though the old King Viserys surely had his hand in that affair, and she was doubly furious, yet after Aelor was born her husband revisited her chambers as if nothing untoward had happened in the meantime.

She spurned him for several years, but he wore her down, and not for the first time. Because he was so beautiful, because his voice was so mesmerizing, because of the sheer power in his eyes and breath, irresistible to her even when he'd been nary a child. Baela had cackled with glee when a furious Dyana was sent to Dragonstone screeching and screaming, and at the age of one and forty, during their first reconciliation, she'd nearly died birthing their twin girls, Daenys and Visenya. The same pattern followed, save the childbirth part, her husband would sneak off to Dragonstone, she'd roam the castle furious, then he'd return to her, they'd reconcile and make passionate love, so on.

Then she found out he'd had more mistresses aside from Dyana, how he'd bed at least a dozen girls at each of the tourneys he'd attended unfailingly, so then Baela could at least recruit her gooddaughter in joining her in fury. She'd watched herself several times the poor girl repeat that same cycle, rage alternating between periods of enchantment being bewitched by the Dragonknight, before finally recognizing her own foolishness in Dyana. But whereas Jaehaerys merely made her mad, Baela watched first with indifference, then finally concern, as her husband drove poor Dyana into actual madness, so that by the time she bore Daemon their first child Aerea together, Baela did not believe her to be a fit mother anymore, and said as much as so to Viserys.

"Lord Royce left the court for Runestone," Daemon muttered as he drank his pea soup, head hunched over as he ate. What an odd, pathetic little family they were, herself, her son, and Dyana, so far removed from the glory of the Conqueror, or even the sheer competence of her half brother Viserys.

"Why," Baela questioned. The Prince of Dragonstone shrugged his shoulders limply.

"Said something about fixing a broken mill on his keep."

No, Daemon would not be much of a king, nor Dyana anything of a Queen at this point. Her eldest son had never been much of a father to Aerea and Little Aegon either, not when he'd spent his entire life seeking and not receiving the approval of the Dragonknight. Of course, Baela could admit to herself her own negligence towards her duty as a mother, so preoccupied as she'd been with her feuds with each and every one of her husband's many mistresses. All the world revolved around Jaehaerys well before he'd become king, scratching and clawing unsuccessfully for a piece of the glorious man, while everyone else around him suffered. It was a wonder Aerea and Aegon turned out so well.

Not for long. Not with Jaehaerys ruining their granddaughter like this, the brightest of their bunch remaining in this wretched castle. Baela would pity her too, but an old woman only had so much pity and worry to spend with in her long life.

* * *

**Aerea Targaryen - 177 AC**

She heard footsteps. Nothing terrified her more than footsteps. The footsteps disappeared, and she could breathe one more. Though not rest, she could never rest, she could never let her guard down.

More footsteps, she'd hold her breath, then breathed, again and again, through so many endless days and nights.

A rustle by the doorknob. He was here. Fire seemed to disperse out of his purple eyes as he approached her, huddled on her bed, holding her knees protectively to her chest.

"Are you going to take your dress off, or do I have to rip it off of you?"

His voice was regal, royal, befit that of a king. Her grandfather did not speak like a rapist, the kind she'd been taught to fear, the uncouth, sweaty bandit hiding out in the Kingswood, prowling and waiting to poach innocent girls like the maiden she'd been. But nobility didn't change the fact of what he was.

"Grandmaester Pudgel saw me today," Aerea whispered.

"And?"

He was already upon her, reaching his hands down her dress, fingers prying, grabbing, pinching, breathing on her. His breath did not reek of wine, the King was not the kind to partake. Was it worse, Aerea wondered, that he'd do this to her with his mind unafflicted?

"I'm with child."

It stopped momentarily. Aerea was not sure whether her grandfather was going to kiss her, or beat her, or break down in tears. Then, just as furiously, he fell upon her again. She heard her garments ripping, as he moved her body like a doll until she was bent over on her elbows and knees.

"Hope it's a girl," she heard him mumbling greedily as he began. "Might as well rear her early, get her used having my cock by her head."

* * *

**The Citadel**

Jaehaerys II Targaryen traveled to Oldtown and was crowned by the High Septon at the age of forty. The noble king still cut a most handsome sight at the time, his long silver hair dragging down nearly to his hips, tinged golden through certain angles, smooth face unlined and handsome, bearing little signs of age. His Queen, on the other hand, was an old woman of sixty, though many described Queen Baela as the fairest of all the old maids in the land. Though they'd reconciled and separated many times throughout their tumultuous marriage, it was thought that the last separation was final when the then Princess Baela cursed the court and her husband, departing King's Landing for what was to be the last time in 171 AC, to reside with her twin sister Rhaena in Oldtown, then already married to her second husband, Ser Garmund Hightower, in what was said to have been a most happy marriage.

It unlucky fate then which brought her newly crowned husband to the Starry Sept, and together they were crowned. The couple made a rare sight by then, silver against gray, but the King promised one final reconciliation, and swore before all gathered that he would remain faithful to his marriage and family. It is said that Jaehaerys bedded that very night the Lady Elleniel Hightower, Rhaena Targaryen's youngest daughter.

Once the royal procession returned to King's Landing, few in court saw the Queen Baela, 'the Wicked', as many labelled her, for her complicity in the death in her first husband, old Alyn Oakenfist. The new King kept most of his new family in Maegor's Holdfast, including his son Daemon, his wife Dyana Blackwood, and their two children, Princess Aerea and Prince Aegon, prohibiting them from taking their rightful castle of Dragonstone. The man once known as the Dragonknight had long abandoned his first mistress Dyana, his son's wife having grown too old for his tastes. The future Queen was seven and thirty years of age, yet looked ten years older, many said, no doubt weary from the toil of having to keep happy two Targaryen charges and lovers, father and son no less.

While the toil suffered by the royal family was taken note of by the court, and thus, the rest of the realm, Targaryen family quirks had long been something learned to be tolerated, the relative normalcy of Visery II Targaryen's reign the exception rather than the rule. The realm was as prosperous as it had ever been, trade flourishing from White Harbor to Dorne to Lys and Volantis and beyond, river valleys thriving from the Rhoyne in Essos to the Vaith and White Knife in Westeros. The North had withdrawn back into the ice well before Cregan Stark's death in 174 AC, and while the northerners remained friendly with the crown decades after the Dance, Rickon Stark, the new Lord of Winterfell, had little wish to repeat his father's adventures south of the Neck. In the Riverlands, Kermit Tully had also long retreated home with the blessings of a grateful crown, the Lord of Riverrun allowing Benjicot Blackwood to represent ably the interests of his kingdom in the capital. There was growing uncertainty in the Vale, where Lord Conrad Arryn, grandson of Lord Joffrey and a boy of two, reigned beside regents who still had not yet forgotten the grudges from Jeyne Arryn's contentious succession.

Loreon Lannister reigned in the west from King's Landing, where he held his seat on the Small Council as Master of Laws. Further south, the Hightowers had been among the first enemy houses reconciled to Queen Rhaeynra, and the Tyrells had long been returned to the fold by the time King Viserys appointed Lord Lyonel his last Hand, a position the new King retained. Dorne found new riches and glory in their ancestral homelands under the flags of the dragon, so it had remained for a time House Baratheon the last great family which still lay adrift.

Alas, what else could heal the wounds of war, but war itself. Unwin Peake had rudely barged into Storm's End seeking the young Olyver Baratheon's support before Aegon's Rebellion erupted. Though it was said the son, whose father Ormund had been killed by the Blacks during the war's last battle, was not entirely unsympathetic, he ultimately spurned rebellion because he doubted the exiled king's chances. Lord Unwin's rudeness upon his liege lord's refusal convinced the young man to ride straight away to King's Landing and report of the imminent betrayal.

The Lord of Storm's End served the crown bravely during Aegon's Rebellion, fighting side by side with Bloody Ben at both the Battles of the Grassy Vale and Nightsong. If Lord Olyver was never personally close with the Queen and Kings on the Iron Throne after the war, he was at least an admirer of Lord Blackwood, and twice refused amicably invitations to sit on the Small Council. Even House Peake stood pacified. Despite his many treasons, Prince Viserys persuaded his mother an honorable beheading for the traitor and, despite Lord Unwin's escape before his execution, his sons were spared, and his daughter Myrielle, once briefly betrothed to Aegon the Broken, would later sit on King Viserys's last Small Council as Mistress of Whispers.

So the realm could afford a fair amount of royal adultery, it could even survive foul rumors of the King bedding his own granddaughter. And while Jaehaerys's sister Rhaenyra no doubt coveted her brother's inheritance from a very young age, she continued to do so from a distance. Viserys II Targaryen gave his daughter Lys so that she may have her own domains to rule...and also to place a Narrow Sea between her, and all the great families whose support she would need to carefully cultivate to even begin considering any ill-conceived notions of rebellion. So while King Jaehaerys's personal misdeeds became more and more foul, it was his political mishaps which ultimately began to wear down the great veneer of fealty.

Sensing a change of tone from his predecessor's reign, Ser Orbert Arryn, son of Ser Arnold, who'd claimed unsuccessfully the Vale after Lady Jeyne's death in 153 AC, arrived at the capital to petition his claim, despite the fact that he'd sworn a vow to Lord Conrad as one of the boy's regents. A charismatic knight and swordsman, it was said the long haired Valeman made a good impression on Jaehaerys II, who nevertheless was bound to support the reigning Lord of the Vale. Unwilling, however, to refuse the request outright, the king told Ser Orbert that if he could defeat him in a duel, then he'd grant the man the Vale, surely an impossibility seeing as the king was believed the best swordsman in all the realm.

The duel commenced, and King Jaehaerys won, but with some difficulty, and all who bore witness swore to Ser Orbert's poise and resilience in defeat. Doubly impressed, Jaehaerys changed his mind that instant, vowing to go to war on Orbert Arryn's cause, rallying his banners despite the admonishings of his Small Council. His army already gathered, the King received ravens from Riverrun and the Trident. Lord Kermit, and even the reclusive Rickon Stark in the North, delivered their ultimatums, swearing to fulfill their vows to defend their former ally's succession, even decades after her death. King Jaehaerys thusly accused the three northern kingdoms of treason and rebellion, but was thankfully talked out of further war by his Council.

The incident left a bitter taste on the lips of every party involved, including Ser Orbert, sorely disappointed having had the hope of a war on his behalf dangled in front of his nose by the king, then dashed away like the autumn wind. Though Jaehaerys ultimately heeded the advice of his Hand with regards to the Vale, Lord Lyonel Tyrell was dismissed from the capital less than two fortnights later, his hated rival Olyver Baratheon appointed in his place.

Nevertheless, the support of the Stormlands was not insignificant, and cooler heads may have eventually prevailed. However, infuriated by such an embarrassment so early into his reign, all the Small Council bore his angry rants, that he could not abide by traitors defying him, that House Targaryen would receive its due. It was noticed in the court as well that the King was witnessed in the open less and less. By the seventh moon of 177 AC, Jaehaerys devoted his time solely to two endeavors: renewing his determination to hatch a dragon and thus revive the fear and blood of his family's repute, and secondly, exceeding his family's already gross reputation for the most ungodly of incests.

Perhaps Jaehaerys's mind had long deteriorated by the time he was crowned, his condition concealed through the continuous efforts of his father. Perhaps the former Prince had been able to hold back his worst impulses, fearing disinheritance, before finally discovering the freedom of the unlimited power of the Iron Throne. Or perhaps it was the Throne itself that changed him, perhaps the man, though never a virtuous Septon, need not have become so twisted had the pressures of ruling seemed to have overwhelmed him almost immediately (it should be noted that while King Viserys happily gave Lys to his daughter, he never felt comfortable enough to name his son and heir to even a position on his Small Council).

The King's licentiousness exploded in fury upon receiving his crown, and the last years of his life would have seen more bastards had he not forced excessive moon tea on most of his mistresses, rendering several of them infertile well after his own demise. Lady Alyssa Baratheon, Lord Olyver's youngest daughter, did not drink moon tea, and bore the King a bastard daughter named Oreana. The Lord of Storm's End did not mind his daughter's dishonor, and both father and daughter appeared convinced that the King would marry Lady Alyssa if and when Queen Baela breathed her last.

Many of Jaehaery's mistresses were less willing. This included his granddaughter Aerea, who bore Jaehaerys a bastard son Rhaegel in 178 AC, horrifying all the court and realm. (Two other bastards were acknowledged, while three more died stillborn, one alongside her mother, a maidservant of four and ten named Jenny, all this seen then as further evidence that the Gods themselves were condemning and turning their backs upon King Jaehaerys). Despising her grandfather and desperate to escape, the future Queen Aerea 'the Great' fell into the embrace of one gallant and handsome young knight named Ser Tytos Brax, who'd accompanied to the capital his liege lord, Loreon Lannister, Lord of Casterly Rock and longtime Master of Laws since the reign of Viserys. Along with Grandmaester Pudgel, the three schemed to smuggle the girl out of the city and into her great aunt's care at Lys, where they could incite the King's sister Rhaenyra into rebellion.

The escape attempt was easily thwarted, and both of Aerea's co-conspirators put to death rather gruesomely in the Black Cells. Lord Loreon protested Ser Tytos's treatment, and for his efforts was thrown into the dungeons as well, leading his son Tommen to raise his banners in his father's name, becoming the first house to declare rebellion against the increasingly depraved King.

Then, nothing. The Westerland armies blocked the Gold Road in preparation of any invasion from King's Landing, but few of the other lords of the realm moved to call forth their troops. Many of the older men still remembered the horrors of the Dance of Dragons, and hoped that perhaps this crisis would fizzle out, after which a regency council could be called to rule in the place of an increasingly mad King, likely led by his sister Rhaenyra, always available on Lys as a second option for the lords. Other lords, particularly the Princess Aliandra in Dorne, refused to act without an actual call for open rebellion by the First Magistress of Lys, whom she'd built close ties to in the intervening years.

While she condemned her brother's actions and called for a release of all prisoners from the Red Keep, including all of her Targaryen relatives, it is interesting to note the future Queen Rhaenyra II Targaryen's hesitation towards declaring open rebellion. Viciously ambitious from an early age, presented with a golden opportunity now, Rhaenyra Targaryen sat silent. Some say she wanted to push her brother to his limits, allow Jaehaerys to further deteriorate, so as to not only make the coming war an easier victory for her, but to give herself a wider foundation to not just overthrow the king, but to disinherit his line entirely. In the Lysene court, the First Magistress excused her inaction to concerns for the safety of her mother, the Dowager Queen Larra, who like so many of his kin, Jaehaerys prohibited from leaving Maegor's Holdfast. Nevertheless, King's sister played the game slowly, and the kingdoms breathed nervously yet peacefully going into the tenth moon of 179 AC.

Things were not as calm inside the Red Keep. The King's family remained in a constant state of terror. Princess Aerea continued to see nighttime visits from her horrid grandfather, though the King's interest in her seemed to wane slightly after she'd given birth. Luckily, Jaehaerys had no other granddaughters born at the time, and many of his lords had diplomatically sent their families home across the realm, including Lord Olyver, who nevertheless remained in the capital trying to salvage what he could out of his King's increasingly tenuous reign.

Then in late 179, King Jaehaerys announced that his efforts at hatching a dragon had finally proven successful. The small, wretched creature, which the King bestowed the unpromising name of Fleshburner, was presented to the court. Seven kingdoms shuddered at the prospect of a madman riding a dragon, thankful that they still had many years before the beast could grow powerful enough for war. But waiting was no longer an option. From Riverrun, Kermit Tully joined the Lannisters in rebellion, and whispers came to King's Landing of troops mobilizing in the valleys of the Vale. Jaehaerys was prepared, having hired secretly five thousand mercenaries from Essos. The royal banners marched westward without delay, defeating a small Riverland army by Stoney Sept, before outmaneuvering the Westerland armies along the Gold Road and forcing the surrender of Deep Den.

Whatever anyone could say of his mental state, King Jaehaerys as a soldier and a commander still remained without equal, save for old Bloody Ben Blackwood. Yet, the old warrior and former husband of Queen Rhaenyra was forced to fight by his King's side, given that his daughter Dyana remained a hostage in the Red Keep. But it's obvious that Lord Blackwood did not push as hard as he could have. Ordered to take Riverrun, Bloody Ben marched as far as Pinkmaiden, where he settled into a siege which seemed, in hindsight, conducted only for the sake of delay and show. By design, the haphazard effort did not prevent the main bulk of the Tully banners from continuing to march towards the capital, forcing the King to retreat eastwards to cover his rear.

Then, at the crossing of the Blackwater, the King's armies were ambushed by the banners of Lyonel Tyrell. Yet Jaehaerys scored another impossible victory, personally dueling and slaying the Lord of Highgarden amidst the fighting. With both armies badly damaged from the battle, the newly rebellious men of the Reach retreated southwards, with the King giving chase all the way as far as Tumbleton. Baratheon reinforcements arrived from the south, and rather than further pursue, the royal banners took the castle instead, the King personally leading the assault on the fortresses's walls.

Then, while the King took his liberties on the servant girls and maidens unfortunate enough to be left behind in the castle, another stalemate befell the war. The Tully banners joined with the Knights of the Vale, but were pushed back by a royalist army led by Garrett Darklyn, charged with defending the capital and the Crownlands. Meanwhile, despite the loss of their liege lord, the King's southern enemies continued to grow in number, as more troops poured in from the Westerlands. Yet, House Hightower, another regency ruling for the late Lord Lyonel's five year old grandson, remained neutral, upon the orders of the Lady Regent Sam Tarly, ruling in her late husband's place. Her position was not unreasonable, considering her youngest son Erros served as one of Jaehaerys's Kingsguard, a most convenient hostage.

By now, the First Magistress of Lys was surreptitiously funding the rebels through cheap loans out of the Rogare Bank. The breaking point for her came late in 180 AC, when her guards caught a band of brigands breaking into her palace. Upon rough questioning, the burglars admitted to have been paid money by the King to kidnap her daughter Baela, a child of ten, for Jaehaerys 'the Wicked', as he was now known, to not only hold as yet another hostage, but to marry as his second bride. Rhaenyra declared war with the full blessings of the Faith, Dorne's armies, already prepared and gathered beforehand, marched through Prince's Pass, and though the King had yet to lose a battle, he found his enemies growing exponentially. Forced to retreat to King's Landing, he sacked Olyver Baratheon, one of his few remaining loyal lords, and named Bloody Ben Blackwood his last Hand...

* * *

**Ben Blackwood - 180 AC**

The sellswords he'd hired were idiots, that much was clear, else both his daughter and granddaughter would be well on their way to Lys by now. Even as Jaehaerys hired thugs to his sister's island to abduct his young niece Baela, so did Ben do the same for the sake saving of his family. Alas, such discrete endeavors were more difficult for a lord than a King, but at least his succeeded, somewhat.

"Wretches," the king raged, his screaming echoing far beyond the Throne room. "Traitors, I'm surrounded by traitors and fools and ignorant wenches..."

"Your Grace," Ben said, stepping into the chambers where his wife had sat several lifetimes before. Jaehaerys II Targaryen turned to acknowledge his new Hand.

"The war can still be won. We need the gold, take out a loan from..."

Then his purple eyes froze when Ben drew his sword.

"What's the meaning of this?"

The old warrior pointed his sword at his King. "Surrender now. Step down. Give the throne to Prince Daemon, peacefully. Your sister may spare you yet. She may not, it's in her hands..."

With a flash, the King's Valyrian blade glinted against the rays of the afternoon sun.

"You...you're a traitor too."

"Aye," Ben nodded. "I paid them to take my granddaughter Aerea to Lys."

Dyana should have gone with them, but his daughter refused to leave Daemon and Aegon behind. Those fucking idiots. He supposed he should have been more specific, telling them to bring as many of the King's hostages as they could fit on the boat, Prince Daemon, BOTH his fucking grandchildren, Queen Larra, hells, the wretched old woman Baela were they able. It should have been obvious, but time had been short, he'd mentioned only Dyana and Aerea, and the damned fools had taken his word most literally.

"You pay the Brax wretch the first time too?"

"I didn't pay them. The Grandmaester and Ser Tytos did what they did out of duty, out of common decency." They needed some nudging, obviously, to work up the courage in defying the evil liege before him. Ben had tried subtlety the first time. It failed, and Aerea confessed to the Grandmaester's complicity, condemning the poor man to a horrible death, in order to save the one grandfather who wasn't raping her.

When the war began he'd been relieved. A king in the field was a king who wasn't forcing himself upon Aerea. It bought him time, for more attempts at rescue. One failed when the sellswords decided to turn face and confess the conspiracy to the King. Fortunately, they were unable to reach Jaehaerys, holed up in Deep Den at the time. Upon finding out thanks to a drunk barmaid, he'd ridden day and night from the siege in Pinkmaiden, surreptitiously slaughtering the scoundrels before they could gain entry the very night before Jaehaerys marched out of the castle back towards the Blackwater.

"You swore a vow," Jaehaerys said, stepping ominously towards him, Blackfyre lingering casually between his fingers and the floor, "to my grandmother Rhaenyra, that you'd protect her line, all who came after her."

"Aye," Ben nodded. "Dyana's her line too. I failed in that, though I didn't realize it until she was already too far gone. Aerea's her line too, the best of all her line. I've failed her enough, but no more."

He'd sworn he would not make his move against Jaehaerys until they were all safe, Dyana, Aerea, Aegon...Daemon too, he was a decent man, if bit broken like the last King Aegon, the heir was nothing like his wicked father. Were he a better swordsman, or Jaehaerys not the best in the land, Ben would have needed less precautions before acting. But more likely than not he'd lose a duel to the Dragonknight, especially now that he was an old man, and Jaehaerys still possessed the last vestiges of youthful vigor in his muscles, the recent war had made that clear enough.

"Traitor," the King hissed, knowing he had no line to reason against him, and leapt into action.

The duel was furious, the dragonknight's blows both mighty and unrelenting in speed. Ben struggled to match each blow, but he knew that, lose he might, all he needed to do was to buy enough time. It had been an unexpected blessing, upon hearing that he'd been named Hand, and ordered to march his army back to the capital to bolster its numbers for the oncoming siege. Where he couldn't have been sure of the loyalties of his banners before, he had more confidence this time around, with most of the realm having turned against their wicked and obviously demented king.

His men had their orders clear. Upon entering the city, he'd marched straight to the Throne room. A hundred knights he'd dispatched to the White Sword Tower. Lord Commander Jason Crabb was a good man who frowned upon his King's actions, but vows were vows, though Ben hoped that most of the Kingsguard would not resist to their deaths. More likely than not, most of the whitecloaks were guarding the King's family, nay hostages, in Maegor's holdfast, which is why he'd sent two hundred knights there, while the remainder of his army took control of the key outposts and walls in the city. Even if he lost his head in his duel, as he'd fully expected, his family would soon be safe, and the King would submit nevertheless, or die.

"Don't trust Dyana," he'd warned his grandson Bennard, Barba's eldest, whom he trusted the most. "She'd still hand the crown right back to Jaehaerys, she's deranged for that man. Take Daemon's measure, if he's unwilling to condemn his father, then name Aerea Queen, and yourself regent in her name, you've got enough dragon's blood in you, and rule until she returns from Lys..."

The King fought furiously, out of rage and madness. But Ben fought out of love, out of regret, out of pain, so he did not give in even when the fight was impossible. Then, a miracle, the Dragonknight swung too hard, trying to take his head off in one fell swoop. His body pivoted, the back of his red cape turned open in his direction, Ben struck, feeling that all too familiar sensation of steel striking through armor and into flesh.

Jaehaerys fell to the ground in a rage, mouth foaming with spit and blood. Standing above him weary and out of breath, Ben pointed his sword at the dragonknight, who no longer deserved such an honorable name.

"Submit. Surrender. Give up the crown..."

"Never," the mad dragon screeched, and Ben felt a sharp pain in his sword hand, realizing too late that it'd just been sliced through by the King's Valyrian steel. Then with what little strength remaining in his body, Jaehaerys plunged his chest upwards and struck Blackfyre through his heart, and Bloody Ben Blackwood could only wonder as to just what he'd accomplished not only in this duel, but through all his wretched life.

* * *

**The Citadel**

...grievously wounded, the King's commands fell on deaf ears. The Blackwood Banners, under the command of Bennard Blackwood, held the castle and all its defenders, and for half a fortnight confusion reigned, as the young knight, now Lord of Raventree Hall, awaited the arrival of Rhaenyra Targaryen, who'd just embarked her fleet from Lys. But the youngest Princess returned first.

Aerea's ship had gotten as far as Sharp Point before she'd heard word of the King's maiming and the storming of the Red Keep. Ordering an immediate return to the capital, the young woman took charge upon her arrival. Nothing was done for the injured Jaehaerys, whose untreated wounds had become infectious, so much so that he was unable to leave his bed, not that his guards would have allowed him anyhow. The King lingered into the second moon of 181 AC, when he finally passed on his forty-fifth nameday. His son was crowned Daemon I Targaryen, King of only a few weakened domains, and the long siege, in reality, negotiation, began.

It was said that the Princess Aerea returned in order to see her tormentor's demise with her own very eyes, that she may have very well prolonged his suffering. It was also said that she inflicted much of it by her own hands, certainly likely considering she had the old man moved to the dungeons the day of her return. Some say it was the future Queen herself who murdered with her own hands both her grandfather, and Fleshburner, whom he'd hatched less than two years before. Thus, it was in the short reign of King Daemon which saw the extinction of the dragons.

But just as surely Aerea Targaryen returned to King's Landing in order to secure her own inheritance, one which her great aunt Rhaenyra, her would be savior until Bloody Ben's coup, had coveted since she'd been a child younger than her...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jaehaerys II Targaryen (136 AC - 181 AC)  
> Reign (176 AC - 181 AC)
> 
> Also called:  
> Jaehaerys 'the Beautiful'  
> Jaehaerys 'the Dragonknight'  
> Jaehaerys 'the Glorious'  
> Jaehaerys 'the Beloved'
> 
> Hands of the King  
> Lyonel Tyrell (176 AC - 177 AC)  
> Olyver Baratheon (177 AC - 180 AC)  
> Benjicot Blackwood (180 AC)  
> Bennard Blackwood (180 AC - 181 AC) - Unofficial at the time, but recognized as de facto regent
> 
> Issue:  
> Daemon Targaryen (b. 149 AC)  
> Viserys Targaryen (b. 151 AC) - died young before the age of 1  
> Aelor Targaryen (b. 153 AC) - settled as merchant in Volantis  
> Rhaenys Targaryen (b. 155 AC) - settled in Stepstones, then eventually Essos  
> Daenys Targaryen (b. 156 AC) - settled in Stepstones, then eventually Essos  
> Visenya Targaryen (b. 156 AC) - settled in Stepstones, then eventually Essos  
> Oreana Storm (b. 180 AC) - crowned Queen of Volantis  
> Rhaegel Waters (b. 180 AC) - married Oreana, executed for rebellion  
> Many additional bastards


	5. Daemon I Targaryen - "The Brief"

**Dyana Blackwood - 181 AC**

The distance was terrifying. Outside, the wind howled wildly. Winter was coming soon, she'd remembered Grandmaester Pudgel saying, before the old man chose to commit treason. Her father committed treason too. They killed each other, the two men she loved, the only two she'd ever loved.

Slowly, cautiously, Queen Dyana of House Blackwood stepped away from the edge of the window. Could she have jumped? It was a curiosity, to be sure. Perhaps she'd explore again later that night. Or the next one. The clouds blotted out the moon. The sky was dark, not an empty canvas, but a finished one. There was nothing for her out there, and there was nothing for her in here.

She remembered how long it had taken for old Jonos Smallwood to die, King Viserys's onetime Master of Coin lingering painfully in his bed for several fortnights, before Grandmaester Pudgel gave him one of his potions, and the old man passed peacefully in his sleep. Had they called another maester from the Citadel to take Pudgel's place yet? Dyana didn't think so. The castle was a blur these days, like everything else, and it was hard for her to comprehend. One minute they'd all been locked in the holdfast, all of Jaehaerys's Kingsguard keeping his women from even walking from one room to another. Then, it appeared that anyone could roam the Keep freely, least of all the Queen. Who would object or turn her back, were she to roam and wander into the old maester's chambers, and search through his vials and jars?

"My children, they'd scold me to remember them," Dyana muttered to herself. What a bitter, stupid joke her children were.

Of all she'd wanted of Jaehaerys, to carry his glorious seed had been her most fervent desire since the first time they'd made love, and it had been the one thing the man denied her until his dying day. Moon tea, always moon tea. She'd been willing at first, patient, knowing that he'd come to see it her way one day. But nothing. He'd force her to share Daemon's bed once her husband was old enough, expecting her to do her wifely duties. How could they expect her to want a mere boy, when she already had for herself the greatest man ever to grace the known world?

But Dyana obliged, because the sooner she spawned Daemon's seed into life, the sooner Jaehearys returned to her bedchambers, and he'd be hers again for a little while longer. Yet still he refused her, even after Aerea was born, and disappearing while he ordered her ladies to force moon tea down her throat, kicking and screaming, without fail after each night he'd bedded her.

Two children she gave Jaehaerys from Daemon's seed, born nine years apart. Neither one were Jaehaerys's, her one lasting regret, the regret eternal after her father murdered her beloved. Not that Jaehaerys bothered to touch her after Aegon. But there was always hope, because he'd returned to her before, so he may again.

"He'll never touch me again," she whispered into the cruel night. "My beautiful dragonknight..."

* * *

**The Citadel**

...by the time the Princess and Magistress Rhaenyra Targaryen sailed from Lys with a grand fleet late in 180 AC, the King's sister had declared war against Jaehaerys not upon Prince Daemon's claim, or the Princess Aerea's, but her own. Landing in Wyl, her army of Lysene warriors, northmen, rivermen, and various mercenaries met with the armies of Dorne half a fortnight later in the Marches, sixteen thousand strong and marching towards the capital. Her enemy by now however, was not King Jaehaerys 'the Wicked', but his son, the unlucky King Daemon I Targaryen, 'the Brief'.

A quiet and gentle man of a shy and sensitive nature, a mediocre warrior, a would be scholar who wasn't at all too sharp, as a young Prince Daemon Targaryen spent much of his youth in the Kingswood. Not hunting, as a Prince of the Blood ought, but quietly sitting and observing the animals, taking delight with every deer or rare bird his fine eyes witnessed. It was said the Prince would have made a fine sight were he only to stand straight and smile, but alas, that was not his nature. His silver hair he kept short, almost in defiance of his father, to look the opposite of Jaehaery's kingly mane, the new king stood little chance against the combined armies moving upon his capital.

But then, most of the armies had little wish to fight the young man, his mad and tyrannical father dead. Yet Rhaenyra 'the Ambitious' pressed on.

The court found some semblance of order in the early days of King Daemon's reign. Bennard Blackwood was officially named Hand, though he passed on the position to the Princess Aerea before the year was over. Letters were sent to all the realm proclaiming the new king's intentions for a peaceful reign, decrying and condemning the crimes of his father, promising forgiveness for all acts of rebellion, so long as the lords stood down and recognized their new King. Both Loreon Lannister and Olyver Baratheon, released from the dungeons, though one had been confined for Jaehaerys, and one against, bent the knee immediately.

Within days of his coronation by a Septon pulled hastily from the streets of Flea Bottom, the armies of the Riverlands and Vale arrived below the walls of the capital. Yet the Lords Kermit Tully and Aryn Royce, who commanded the Knights of the Vale as chief regent for the boy lord Conrad Arryn, found themselves in the same bind as much of the rest of the realm. Swear fealty to Daemon, and Rhaenyra continues and wins her war, they might well lose their heads, without actually committing an act of actual treason. Unreasonable treason, that was, there was no wrong seen now in having opposed the dreadful tyrant Jaehaerys.

The armies settled outside the capital for yet another usual siege, conducted technically in the name of the Magistress Rhaenyra. There were no hostilities, no trenches dug, while knights and courtiers traveled freely between the camps and the court. Then, the new King stepped outside the Red Keep for the first time since his father's coronation, and addressed the lords and soldiers present by the tents where they slept. He condemned the crimes of his father, he swore to restore the realm, heeding the counsel of wiser men than he. King Daemon also affirmed his sole right to hold the crown, and that of his heir Aerea, who was known through all the court, if not the rest of the realm yet, as a most bright and promising child, before she'd been despoiled by her grandfather. With little choice other than fealty before the rightful holder of the Iron Throne, the men, led by Lord Tully and Royce, bent the knee and swore allegiance.

To the south, the defeated Tyrell banners were joined by nine thousand men rallied by Lady Sam Tarly on behalf of House Hightower. Her youngest son had survived Ben Blackwood's coup, though she did not know this yet. But the mistress of the Hightower declared her support for Queen Rhaenyra, deciding that her family could not stand on the wrong side of a civil war twice over, and one son was enough a sacrifice to pay to retain the prestige of their ancient house. Together, they joined the Lysene and Dornish armies, marching towards the capital, all still unaware of King Jaehaerys's death.

Then, Queen Dyana died, some say by her own hand, some say poisoned by various enemies, though the woman was known to have been in poor health, mentally and physically, for many years predating the current crisis. Within the turn of one night, King Daemon's will to persist vanished, and none of the newly pledged lords caught a glimpse of the new king for much of the rest of his reign...

* * *

**Rhaenyra Targaryen - 181 AC**

She did not wish her father any ill will. She missed the old man, and thought of the last time they were together, when the King came to Lys days after the the birth of Daenerys, her third child. Her last one, likely, having heard the ordeals of her kin attempting to bring a child into the world past the age of forty. She'd noticed him coughing then, but her father brushed it off. Her mother agreed, but the Queen's worried look told her otherwise. King Viserys II Targaryen died less than a year afterwards, upon returning to King's Landing. If Rhaenyra could speak to him now, she would look him in the eyes, and say to him the words, 'I told you so.'

She'd long known her brother's true nature, even before the accolades began, and grown men began calling a young boy the dragonknight, and grown women swooned before his beautiful countenance. It wasn't that Jaehaerys had been an excessively cruel child, to herself, or anyone else, as far as Rhaenyra remembered. They teased each other, as all siblings did, Targaryen or not. But Jaehaerys never knew when to stop. When he went too far, pulling her hair, calling her ugly, making all their friends and playmates swear they'd never touch her, that no one would want to marry her one day, his friends would play along, then tire of the joke, yet Jaehaerys pressed them to continue, ordered them when they hesitated, while she lay on the ground crying at the torment, even though none of them beside her brother dared lay a hand upon her.

It was the same when at their meals, Jaehaerys wouldn't stop eating, until father scolded him, then had the servants beat him when the boy refused. When father left court, Jae would convince the young squires in the castle to take him out hunting. The prince would return almost a fortnight later cheery eyed and eager, while the squires looked as if they'd gone to war, having been pushed to their limits by a mere lad of seven or eight. The old lords would laugh at them, make remarks that the boy would make a fine soldier some day. All of that was true. But not a good king, she'd known that early enough in her life.

Of all the names her brother became known by in his short yet eventful life, Rhaenyra mused now that the first ought to have been 'the Careful.' Their father was a sharp man, not blind, so Jaehaerys soon learned to hide not just his worst impulses, but all his impulses, from father. Then mother too, because he learned soon enough that mother was sure to always tell father. Then Queen Rhaenyra as well, because, blind as the old woman was to all of Jae's faults, she nevertheless never failed to relay any gossip of the boy's mischief back to Viserys, because their grandmother found his exploits cute and precocious and entirely harmless.

Soon enough he'd learned to hide himself from everyone, save a few precious moments when he'd reveal himself to his sister, whom he'd learned to hate, because Rhaenyra never possessed any of his excesses, his spirit, his will, because she did not need to learn how to control herself or behave, so she'd rarely heard a harsh word from their parents all her life. If his wild nature scared her early in their childhood, his caution, to a point beyond deviousness, she thought, terrified her ever the more, as they both grew closer to their maturity.

"Mother!"

Mother and daughter hugged, though Rhaenyra thought something amiss with the Queen Dowager. 'Politics,' she huffed in her mind.

"How bad was it," Rhaenyra fervently asked. "Did he mistreat you?"

"He forgot me, I give thanks," the old matriarch replied her, pulling away. "He's good practiced ignore me, when I tell him not to marry Baela."

"And when you scolded him for straying from her too, I'm sure."

Mother nodded. She'd hated Baela from the beginning, for stealing her son, for making him rotten. Rhaenyra wasn't going to argue with her anymore that Jaehaerys had always been rotten, though Baela certainly made him worse. She'd also long stopped hating the poor woman, because not even the Dowager Queen Baela Targaryen deserved what the late king put her through.

As far as the realm knew, Rhaenyra went to war because of another Baela, her daughter, whom Jaehaerys would have forced himself upon as his second bride, a foolish move of a man deeply past the point of sanity, one which conveniently earned Rhaenyra the support of the Hightowers and all the Faith's septons in Oldtown and beyond. She thought of her daughter, so innocent, and safe in Lys, whom she named not out of any affection for her brother's wife, but out of spite, because the old woman finally left Jaehaerys for what they'd all thought the last time by then, and Rhaenyra thought it a neat and clever insult. Did that give her excess pity for the old bitch, because she shared a name now with her daughter?

"You must protect them," the Dowager Queen pleaded her softly, more with her eyes than her mouth. "Daemon, he is not well. And Aerea, what he did to her..."

"They will not come to harm," Rhaenyra promised her mother.

The capital lay in a state of half siege when they'd arrived. She did not know whether the Tully or Arryn banners, encamped outside the capital for nearly half a year by now, stood poised to fight her army, or bend the knee. Apparently they did not know either, Lord Kermit confessed to her, until they'd been ordered to stand down, and allow the late king's sister to enter the city unmolested. Her grand niece Aerea greeted her, sitting atop an Iron Throne which belonged to her father. It was an obvious gesture from a child, a show of force after her weakness of having to surrender the capital to her great aunt. Rhaenyra respected her for it, hells, she respected the balls on that girl.

"After all this is resolved," she promised her mother, "you should sail back to Lys. I've chambers prepared for you."

The former Queen nodded, and took her daughter into her arms again. Queen Larra did not ask the question however, with whom was she to return to her native lands to?

Rhaenyra had waited for war, because she had waited for this moment all her life. When it came, when the great lords of the continent she'd been cast away from looked to her island exile and sent ravens begging and pleading, there rose a strange defiance in her heart, a grudge she hadn't been aware of. Where had they been all her life, the Tyrells and Tully's and Lannisters, how convenient for them to all of a sudden remember her only after Jaehaerys's unfitness for life, much less a throne, had been proven well beyond reason?

But no, the true reason she'd waited was because declaring for the Throne was exactly what _they_ expected of her, Rhaenyra 'the Ugly', Rhaenyra 'the Ambitious', Rhaenyra the hideous sister to the beautiful Dragonknight, the shame of their family, of House Targaryen, so much so to be tossed a continent away into an indigent paradise. No, it was so obvious, to do what they'd expected of her all her life, and she would not give them what they wanted, even when it was she whom they wanted. Not immediately, anyhow.

So Rhaenyra did nothing, even though she shouldn't have, even though people suffered because of her stubbornness. Aerea, in particular. Dyana too, she'd never cared for that woman, but same as the former Queen Baela, their sins did not deserve them their suffering at Jaehaerys's hands. And Aerea, they'd all abandoned to him, a throwaway to keep themselves safe, yet here she stood, running a castle, a city, fight yet left in her soul to protect her birthright.

"They'll call this Rhaenyra's Rebellion," the young girl of eight and ten said to her in the Small Council chambers, "the Queen who won her crown without even a battle."

'Not yet,' she thought. Aerea Targaryen wore the brooch of the Hand upon her stern robes, formality was to be retained even with family, and Rhaenyra could not help but admire her for it. The girl was beautiful, like her grandfather and late tormentor. Her lips were Jaehaerys's, her eyes, her brows, and Rhaenyra wondered if Jaehaerys desired this poor girl because it was as close as he could come to making love with himself. Perhaps that was what he'd truly desired all his life, perhaps that was the madness which drove him.

Or, more likely, simply the end of the road he and he alone had chosen to travel.

"No," Rhaenyra admitted, "I suppose this war won itself for me, didn't it?"

"He won it," Aerea mutter through gritted teeth, eyes cast upon the seat belonging to the Master of War, a seat which had belonged to Ben Blackwood for its entire existence, before the man's final and fatal promotion. "He died a hero. He deserves to be remembered as one."

"He will be," she promised, as if she were already Queen and crowned. "I'll have statues made of him and placed through all seven kingdoms. None have served this family as well and as faithfully as Lord Blackwood has, not even Septon Barth or Orys Baratheon."

"No. They served, but they didn't die for us, did they?" The girl's purple eyes turned to the gilded chair at the head of the table, and Rhaenyra doubted her father had sat upon the King's Council seat more than once or twice, if at all. "He's a good man, you know this."

"But not fit to be a king," Rhaenyra rebutted, "you know this too."

The girl took after her mother too. Her cheeks, round and soft like the late Queen Dyana's. Where King Jaehaerys had been all warrior and muscle, and King Daemon a slumped over heap of skin and bones, the was a softness that permeated all throughout the young Princess Aerea, that gave her the look of a wench warm and inviting. Certainly Jaehaerys saw that in her, perhaps only that, but Rhaenyra was coming to understand that the heart underneath her buxom chest was anything but soft.

"He doesn't have to rule."

"You'll do it for him," she asked skeptically.

"We both can," Aerea replied. Formidable woman she was growing to be, there was still a naivete to her thoughts, belying the lofty title her father so recently placed upon her young shoulders. "We sit in this room together, with the lords of the land, and rule in his name, and he'll be remembered a great King, so long as we don't fail his charge."

"So could Jaehaerys have been too, if he listened to his council. What of a king who doesn't listen, what of a king, young and unmarried, who'd find counsel outside of this table one day?"

The implication was clear. Daemon had always been a man led by his wife, though she loved his father rather than he. He never protested being cuckolded by his father all his life, but why should he, it was the only thing the poor man had ever known from his earliest memories. Yet Daemon loved Dyana, because his father ordered him to for the sake of a dynasty Jaehaerys had been halfway cognizant towards until nearly the end, and the boy always did what he was told, because who could refuse the great dragonknight, least of all the man's browbeaten son? Who this man was now, his father's shadow forcibly ripped away, or what he could become in the coming years, Rhaenyra reckoned not even the Gods knew.

"That's your excuse to take the throne," the girl questioned her, her voice rising, "to steal my inheritance from me? What blood have you shed for the rights you so boldly claim?"

So it really came down to the simple fact that the girl coveted the damned throne as much as she did? It would almost amuse Rhaenyra, were such sentiments not so dangerous to her.

"What blood have you shed," she retorted back sharply, then instantly regretting what she'd said. But suffering alone did not earn one a crown.

At first Rhaenyra prepared herself for the most uncouth reply from the young Princess, but quickly composure returned to the girl, impressively so, Rhaenyra admitted silently. Aye, there was something incredibly remarkable about this young woman, and the Gods knew what she could become, if Rhaenyra weren't so damned eager to snatch all her dreams and ambitions from her womb, her fingers tendrils of moon tea upon the girl's aspirations, her very soul.

"Our numbers are even," Aerea replied her evenly. "I have two kingdoms from the north. You have two kingdoms from the south. The west, I suppose their decision will come down to the flip of a coin. But none of these lords wish to fight each other, not with the tyrant dead. Nor would they be eager to fight on behalf of a girl, or a woman who might as well be a foreigner..."

"Princess Aliandra Martell will fight for me," Rhaenyra said coldly. Aliandra had been the only man, or woman, on the continent who hadn't forgotten about her. Who'd reached out, treated her as an equal, not an exile. "And her men are fresh and unbattled."

"Aye," Aerea acknowledged, "which gives you an advantage."

It did not escape her notice that the Princess spoke solely for her own claim now, rather that of her father's.

"What if they choose not to fight for either of us," the girl continued. "All together, they'd outnumber Dorne, surely. I doubt any of them are eager to champion my father, unless to declare a regency for the remainder of his reign. Or perhaps they might call another Great Council, name my brother Aegon king. Or your son Aenys, a man in either case."

"A child of nine or a child of eight," Rhaenyra laughed, "aye, and give themselves a regency for half a generation."

"And set a precedent that no woman may ever sit on the throne again," Aerea continued intently, "throwing away everything Queen Rhaenyra fought for in the Dance."

The girl was wise beyond her years, Rhaenyra could no longer deny this, but Aerea wasn't finished.

"It's what they want to do. What else could they want, if we gave them the power to want, the opportunity to discover their own dreams, so long concealed? Perhaps, they could decide to name one of their own, to sit upon the throne forged by our ancestors. A Hightower. A Tully, the boy lord Conrad Arryn, give themselves an Andal for a King, and their regency to boot. Then what power do we have in objecting, when they hold all the armies, their banners, their thousands of men?"

"You're right. The more we fight between ourselves, the more power we hand freely over to them." The girl was weathered enough to understand fealty and pledges, and their limits. Rare indeed for anyone, much less a Princess of the blood.

Aerea Targaryen's hardened eyes stared into the older woman's soul, and Rhaenyra wondered which one of them would give way first.

* * *

**The Citadel**

...so the negotiations concluded, a rare result where the proceedings pleased most, if not all, of the parties involved. King Daemon I Targaryen's reign would be recognized, and indeed, his aunt waited until the second moon of 182 AC before signing the treaty of abdication, allowing the broken king to have ruled atop the Iron Throne for a year to the day. Upon his resignation, the Prince was awarded Dragonston again for the remainder of his life.

Queen Rhaenyra II Targaryen then ascended to the crown, at the price of disinheriting her children from the grand prize she'd just won for herself. Aerea Targaryen, who would succeed her, would marry her second born child and eldest son Aenys, thus reuniting the two lines which originated with King Viserys 'the Wise'. Denied Dragonstone, the traditional seat of the heir, Aerea would receive a different consolation prize indeed, a crown taking Rhaenyra's place not as First Magistress, but as the first Queen of Lys and its surrounding lands, until the day she'd ascend herself to the Iron Throne.

The lords of the realm returned to their homes, relieved that the mess left by the late King had been resolved with less than the expected bloodshed. Offered a position as the new Queen's Hand, Loreon Lannister refused, having suffered enough of the politics of King's Landing for several lifetimes. Olyver Baratheon received a full pardon, the brunt of his own liege's capricious sense of justice deemed enough punishment for his loyalty to the dead tyrant. The new Queen's children were sent for from Lys, save Prince Aenys, and Queen Larra Rogare accompanied her great granddaughter to her beloved island home, where she passed away peacefully one year after her return in 183 AC...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Daemon I Targaryen (149 AC - 212 AC)  
> Reign (181 AC - 182 AC)
> 
> Also called:  
> Daemon 'the Unlucky'  
> Daemon 'the Unhappy'  
> Daemon 'the Besieged'
> 
> Hands of the King  
> Bennard Blackwood (181 AC)  
> Aerea Targaryen (181 AC - 182 AC)
> 
> Issue:  
> Aerea Targaryen (b. 163 AC) - succeeded to Iron Throne  
> Aegon Targaryen (b. 164 AC) - adventurer in the Stepstones, briefly proclaimed himself King. Eventually settled in Essos.  
> Larissa Targaryen (b. 192 AC) - w/Terissa Farman (second wife); settled in Lys.  
> Rhaenyra Targaryen (b. 196 AC) - w/Terissa Farman (second wife); died young at age of 2.  
> Jaehar Targaryen (b. 197 AC) - w/Terissa Farman (second wife); briefly married in Volantis, eventually joined Kingsguard  
> Vaera Targaryen (b. 204 AC) - w/Terissa Farman (second wife); died of Greyscale at age 11.


	6. Rhaenyra II Targaryen - "The Good"

**Quenton Reyne - 166 AC**

"All clear?"

"Aye," the wench replied from above. "No sentries in sight."

"It's both our heads girl, if yer wrong."

This was a lie. The girl, not a whore he didn't think, but whatever she was, would probably hang. Though, as harsh as they said the Targaryen Magistress of Lys could at times, Quenton had also heard that she was so said to be and more inclined to show mercy than many of her predecessors, Rogare or not. A soft people, the Lysene said of the Westerosi, great irony indeed.

But the youngest brother of Brandon Reyne, the great hero of Volantis Harbor and Master of Ship for King Viserys II Targaryen, would likely to survive a mere smuggling charge, or three dozen. Better the girl be scared though, so that she didn't make a stupid decision which would damn no one but herself. Or have second thoughts. Or more importantly, act upon any second thoughts.

The men began offloading the first of his ships, and the girl's eyes widened in wonder.

"How many barrels did you say that was?"

"Over a thousand," Quenton gestured grandly, "across all my fleet. The finest Arbor Gold in the world."

"That's better than the wine they serve in the establishments?"

"Aye," Quenton nodded. "Dornish piss, the lot of it. Damned new Magistress here is tight with them Martells lounging in the Water Gardens 'cross the sea, charges twice the amount of tariffs on the good stuff."

In Lys the Lovely, the 'establishments' amounted to the everything in the city, inns, lounges, taverns, brothels, they were all the same really, made so that a man, or the rare wealthy widow, to get all they'd want in one place, whether it was food, sleep, wine, or the best fuck gold could buy. He'd had a chance to savor the local flavors occasionally, but the city was still new to him, and this shipment the largest he'd dare bring in. Once delivered, it would make his name for sure, and he could better afford less caution to enjoy the fruits of his labors. But for now, care was needed. They'd brought in king's daughter to rule, and word was from King's Landing and across the narrow sea that the First Magistress Rhaenyra Targaryen could be more ruthless than her father, and almost as canny. He could depend on his brother's name and reputation to avoid the gallows, but based on gossip from the other dockhands, his men were less likely to enjoy such tender mercies.

"Are you gonna share, or what," the girl asked, winking. Her name was Lynna, and he'd met her in one of the rougher taverns in the lower city, where she'd served him piss ale and wine far worse than what he was accustomed to. But she knew all the back alleys and entrances and cracks in the walls where one could bring in hundreds of barrels of wine unnoticed, and coves by the shore where he could stow the remainder.

"Five barrels marked by Lord Redwyne himself," he nodded eagerly. "The best of the batch, it'll change your life, I promise you."

"Make that a solemn vow," the silver haired beauty replied, "or I'll lead yer straight to the sentries."

"Aye, I swear then. My treat." Not that Quenton took her threat seriously, the girl was merely thirsty, after all. He could threaten her, but that didn't sit well with him. He wasn't that hard of a man, really, playing at criminality when he didn't need the money that badly. For all his efforts, Ser Quenton Reyne knew that he was merely a highborn smuggling sheerly out of boredom, if only because there wasn't much else for a third son to pursue in this world, and by the Gods, he hated the cold, let the Magistress impale him on the ancient spikes of the city if the alternative meant Castle Black.

"Good."

With a word they were off, the girl scampering up the ancient steps leading up the eroded walls on the oldest side of the city. His procession moved slower, carefully carrying the heavy barrels through the maze, breathing hard and giving thanks each time Lynna disappeared down a small alley or tunnel rather than another set of burdensome stairs. She moved quickly, running like a street urchin, disappearing in the darkness before stopping and waiting impatiently for the rest of them to catch up. When she'd hop off once more, Quenton could not help but sneak a look under her sheer silk robes, that was the one benefit the steps afforded him.

Her body was fine. Not perfect, but beguiling enough, especially in the way she moved. Her face was pretty enough too, not perfectly carved like the whores in the pillow houses, which was why he figured he never saw her take coin for anything other than drinks at the tavern. They had high standards for the pleasure women here in Lys, and merely pretty enough just didn't cut it, unless a girl wanted to service brutes, drunks, and the occasional failed pirate.

Quenton mused that the girl could pretty fetch herself a good life somewhere in Westeros, out in Lannisport, or even far up in the north, Winterfell, or Mole's Town, charge more than all the others by calling herself a Targaryen Princess, and the drunks would be nary the wiser. Girls of Valyrian blood were far less common back home than in Lys, after all. He thought about suggesting the idea to her, but thought better of it. She did not seem the kind to want to be a whore. Perhaps that's what he liked about her, what made her different in this city, where everything seemed to be about how much coin a man had in his pocket. No, though she'd receive a piece of gold at the end of this, Quenton had the feeling that the girl was doing this simply for a thrill, an escape from the life of a common tavern wench, not an unfamiliar sentiment to him own ambitions, or lack of them.

Not that the girl was all that young, either. He couldn't tell, honestly, Valyrians seemed to age differently than the rest of them, and she could be anything from a sprite barely into her maturity, to about his age, or maybe even older. It was her eyes, Quenton thought, they had the look of a woman who'd seen more of life than her naivete would suggest. Perhaps there was something after all to those strange religions of the far east, that a soul could live more than one life in the world.

They arrived at the other side of the old fortresses, and Quenton recognized the red walls of the temple of the fire god, rolor, or whatever those strange priests called it. Rarely attended except by a few dozen devoted in the day, the Temple was more lively at night, or so he'd heard, especially when the strange priests, or priestesses, many of them as alluring as the pillowed companions of the city, performed their even stranger rituals. None tonight though. All was quiet, so the girl proved her worth thus far. Slowly, they tiptoed through dank tunnels which he wondered if any creature other than rats had traversed for centuries, except the girl knew her way through them obviously. Hidden in a dark crevice were five small but sturdy wagons, arranged by the girl to make their transport easier.

"Which family," Lynna asked. She'd disappeared into the darkness minutes before, where dim lights illuminated the entrance, before scampering back. From where she stood, her shadow ran past him, leaning against the first wagon behind him.

Quenton laughed, though the rest of his men frowned and mumbled suspiciously. "You know I can't tell you that, wench."

"There's five sentries having a time by the statue Yndros' statue. Whoever you think's waitin' for yer there, don't think they stuck around long."

"Aye, cause yer tipped them off, whore?"

His contacts were supposed to meet them in the old abandoned barracks, on the other side of the square from the statue.

Raising one hand, Quenton silenced the man. "Shut yer trap, Abe, I trust her." He frowned, scrunching his eyebrows together to look threatening. "Don't make me regret it." He was a threatening man, many a few who'd crossed him had learned their lesson to not cross him again, in this life or the next. But Quenton Reyne did not like threatening women, whores or not.

The girl seemed unperturbed, not by Abe, not by himself. "Look ser, I'm not dim, I doubt there's but a few families in the city that can afford that much wine, and I can count them on one hand, I bet." She pointed down the tunnel and to the left. "They've whorehouses that way, each family their own, by the fish markets."

Abe grunted behind him. He was a good sailor, came from the Iron Islands. Quenton forgot why he left, either he took the wrong salt wife, or fucked the wrong salt wife. "They've whorehouses by the markets? How come I haven't heard of them?"

"He pays you?" Lynna asked, gesturing towards Quenton.

"Not enough," Abe muttered.

"But he pays you coin," Lynna stated plainly. "Those brothels are for men who have to pay with fish, or whatever bread they can't sell at the market, pickpockets who've had a bad day. But it don't matter, the five families don't like competition, they'll take their share whether it comes from a Westerosi lord, or beggar with a lucky day, or rotten smugglers who don't appreciate where their bread's buttered."

"Aye, can't imagine the place smelling better than fish," Quenton laughed, wondering if the girl would understand the bawdy meaning. Her eyebrows twitched, and he thought so.

"Exactly not the kind of place the soldiers be looking for smugglers of fine wine," Lynna continued. "Tell me which family these are going to, I'll bring ya to the right establishment, I'll get my coin, you'll get yours, and you'll all be sleeping, or not sleeping, up on Pantera's Hill tonight."

"The Pyrzids." Did he have a choice? "Don't say a word of it, girl, not to anyone. I'll give you twice what we agreed to to keep quiet." Had this been her ploy all along? He wouldn't doubt it, she looked clever, and looks belied her even then.

"Aye, hop to it then."

Sure enough, the brothel looked and smelled as rancid as the girl described. Abe's eyes strayed nevertheless, and Quenton could only laugh as they unloaded their first shipment. "Fucking Ironbron," he muttered to himself, "probably likes his wenches toothless."

Footsteps. He froze first. Then the rest of his men half a second later. Then the whores, who started screaming when a platoon of about a dozen guards stormed the brothel.

"Fuckin' whore," Abe shouted, "she betrayed us, I knew it!"

"Someone did," Quenton swore, wanting to defend her, but knowing better. "The fuck, I trusted her!" He liked her, by the Gods, he'd half sworn he would've gone back to the tavern to find her after all this was over, something whispered in his mind that he would've rather wandered abandoned tunnels with the girl rather than spend his well earned earnings at the finest establishments on Pantera's Hill.

Then they saw her, standing at the doorway. When she walked towards him, triumph in her eye, the soldiers parted for her, and Quenton realized she'd not done this just because the guards or some rival family were paying her more than he.

"Your Grace." "Your Grace." Each man bowed his head unfailingly at her.

"You're, you're...," Quenton stumbled, pointing a shaking finger at her. Behind him, Abe and the rest of the men still stared at her in rage, not fully comprehending just yet.

"Aye," the impostor replied, mocking the low tongue she'd just been speaking in less than an hour before, that he'd only heard her speak through the very few days he'd known her, or thought he'd known her. "To them, I'm the Magistress. To you, Ser Quenton of House Reyne of Castamere, son to Lord Reynard, brother to Brandon and Bulton, I'd be Your Grace, a Princess of the blood."

"And daughter of King Viserys," Quenton added for the benefit of Abe, who still stood befuddled. He laughed. What could he do but laugh, as firm hands grabbed and bound his wrists with rope.

"Thought you'd be older," he mumbled as they walked him out of the whorehouse, Princess Rhaenyra of House Targaryen infuriatingly maintaining her pace right beside him, gloating in her victory.

"I'm not that young," she replied him with a smirk. "But I'll take it as a compliment, Lord Quenton." Did she wink at him? He swore she did.

"Then you know who my brother is." He hated pulling the brother card. But when it came to saving his life, or the lives of his men, a little pride he did not mind swallowing.

"Aye, I'm sure he'll be infuriated, he'll protest to my father in court. _After_ he finds out, of course, ravens can fly fast or slow here, you see?" She winked at him again, he wasn't imagining things. Then she stroked his bare arm, sensually, even, as if trying to taunt him into rage. But hadn't she been taunting him from the very beginning, egging him on willingly into ruin?

"Look," he said in a whisper, as they passed under the faded statue of Yndros, one of a dozen in the city, and the worst of the lot, "you know and I know I'm to be returned to Westeros in one piece. My men, they're not brothers to the Hero of Volantis Harbor, they're not highborn like me, they don't have friends in court..."

"Then be glad you told me about the special barrels Lord Redwyne marked out for you, the best of the batch." The grin never left her face, looking almost predatory. "Perhaps I'll bring you a glass down to the dungeons tonight, and we can toast each other. My treat."

Did it worry him that he'd swear he looked forward for her to fulfill her promise? Or trusted fully that she would?

* * *

**The Citadel**

The ascension of Queen Rhaenyra II Targaryen marked the end of an era of dual conflicts, both civil, and in the expansion of the realm, which began with the Dance of Dragons dating to the reigns of Aegon II and Rhaenyra I. So follows the cyclical nature of Westerosi history, with a long peace of the Dragons under the example set by the Kings Jaehaerys I and Viserys I, lasting until ill tidings came ringing from the north presaging the Long Night. The new Queen brought with her a very Dornish court, comprised not only of her new Hand Princess Aliandra Martell's patrons, but the vast family of Ser Horton Qorgyle, who served her in many capacities while the former First Magistress governed the lands of Lys.

Her husband Quenton of House Reyne brought added political pressures to the west as well, which would lead to the only major military endeavor undertaken by Queen Rhaenyra. Cognizant of his younger brother's marriage, Lord Brandon Reyne, Master of Ship, slipped quietly away at the beginning of Rhaenyra's rebellion and, rather than support his old friend Jaehaerys II, arrived in Casterly Rock ready to organize the royal fleet for the benefit of the rebels.

Alas, the brief war which ensued was one fought mostly on land, to which the Lord of Castamere contributed little. Nevertheless, the veteran captained sailed all the ships he could gather south, beat back a Greyjoy raiding party, and reached Lys before Rhaenyra Targaryen disembarked west, providing added protection for his goodsister as she sailed to Westeros to press her claim and grudges. Whatever their capacity or effectiveness, the support of the western houses demanded repayment, and so Houses Lannister and Reyne stood together in asking the price: a royal invasion of the Iron Islands, to end permanently the harassment of the Ironborn raiders.

Though Dalton Greyjoy had been promised a seat on the Small Council for his initial support of Rhaenyra I, the Ironborn played the most minor of roles during the war which was ultimately won for the Queen by the northern three kingdoms. Both sides of the truce lost interest in the other, and with House Lannister cast to the wilderness for their support of Aegon II, the Lady Regent Johanna Lannister was left to deal with the Ironborn raiders on her own, of which she did a well enough job, and from these wars would emerge the young captain Brandon Reyne, who would catapult to fame and favor in court with his great victory in Volantis Harbor, subjugating the ancient city to the Iron Throne.

Dalton's son Toron continued his father's tradition, winning a few raids, losing others as well as several of his brothers (one of whom was gelded by the Lady Johanna, another taken as her lover). Eventually a raid was assembled reaching all the way to Torrhen's Square in the North in 159 AC, bringing out all the might and wrath of the old Lord of Winterfell, who drove the raiders back into the Sunset Sea. Cregan Stark demanded action from the Iron Throne to permanently quell the threat, and King Viserys obliged, sending an emissary to Pyke commanding an end to all raids. Lord Toron, who had little interest personally in reaving, agreed, pacifying the king. Lord Toron, who also had little interest in anything else other than drinks and feasts with his salt wives, did little to prevent any of his subjects from continuing their ways, but activity slowed for several decades without the promise of support from Pyke against fierce invasions and retribution from Casterly Rock and Castamere.

The aging Lord Toron was succeeded in all by name by his third eldest son Vickon, who took leadership of the clan at an early age (his eldest brother was a cripple from a young age, and second eldest brother frail throughout his short, doomed life). Raiding activity resumed, and in 183 AC Vickon ran his fleet into the center of Lannisport itself, setting afire several of the most prominent mansions in the city as well as abducting Lady Jeane Reyne, a cousin to Lords Brandon and Quenton, and wife of Lord Petyr of Lannisport.

The Queen declared war. The Ironborn lost the war, as they ultimately do all their revolts, but House Lannister's repute found itself sorely damaged in the aftermath as well. Two fleets sailed from Lannisport. Eight thousand men under Loreon Lannister and his son Loren sailed to Harlaw, where Vickon Greyjoy was said to be hiding out, harassing the incumbent Harlaw lords into giving him an island to claim for himself while his father still lived. Hoping the Lannister expedition to be sufficient distraction, the Reyne brothers led a much smaller force of less than a thousand men for an ambush upon Pyke.

Within days Pyke was taken and all the Greyjoy brood save Lord Vickon stood under the custody of the Reyne army. Meanwhile, lost in the fog trying to find their way up a blind charge against Harridan Hill, the Lannister army fell into an ambush and found themselves literally driven into the sea by the hundreds, Lord Loreon amongst them (pity the old lord, who'd survived the travails of Jaehaerys 'the Wicked' only to fall prey to a band of petty pirates; his body was never recovered). The night saw the young Loren Lannister yet another captive to Vickon Greyjoy, giving each set of the war numerous valuable hostages...except Vickon Greyjoy cared little for his own captured kin.

The war yet not over, the remnants of the Lannister army managed an orderly retreat to Pyke, where Brandon Reyne now ruled for a fortnight as a petty king on behalf of his goodsister upon the Iron Throne. The formerly gallant hero had become something of a religious zealot in his middle age, and demanded the conversions of all the castle to the Seven. Lord Toron agreed, along with most of the younger Greyjoy brood, as did Lord Vickon's eldest son Alton, who would eventually inherit the lordship not long after the end of the war.

Those who defied the Lord of Castamere's demands, which included Lord Toron's eldest sons, as well as a number of the castle's staff including the elder chef, master at arms, and castellans, were sent on a boat sailing for Volantis and beyond. Brandon Reyne sold more than forty men and boys, as young as seven, into slavery once the cargo arrived in Astapor many moons later. (The wives and daughters who refused to convert were brought to Castamere and forced into servitude, though the Queen's eventual intervention led many to be released and allowed to return home).

The Lord Consort Quenton protested his brother's heavy handed actions, or so he claimed, but his concerns fell on deaf ears. The High Septon himself was amongst the many in the realm horrified by Lord Brandon's services on behalf of the Faith, but those within close proximity of the war felt little sympathy for raiders who had raped and pillaged their lands and women for so long. Even Queen Rhaenyra, who denounced the actions and fined Lord Brandon a hundred gold dragons for his crime, upon hearing years later that Toron's eldest son Theon, a cripple, had been viciously whipped to death before the court of an Astaporian master, merely remarked that twenty women on the Westerland coast who could have been salt wives breathed a sigh of relief. (Balon, Toron's sickly second eldest son, was to have been nailed upside down to a wooden cross and left for the crows shortly after his arrival in the east).

Certainly Loren Lannister, the new Lord of Casterly Rock who returned home fatherless, gelded, and missing his right arm and left leg, did not weep at the atrocities about to befall the defiant Ironborn in the cities of Slaver's Bay, while the conversions themselves were ultimately meaningless, Alton Greyjoy returning to the religion of his birth within a decade of the rebellion.

The ship carrying the Greyjoy prisoners must have passed unknown the great fleet about to put an end to the First Greyjoy Rebellion. Though led by Queen Aerea of Lys in name, in actuality the fleet over a hundred strong was captained by Ser Mors Qorgyle, younger brother to Lord Arthur Qorgyle, the effective Hand of the island queen (though he held the position of Lower Magister), and the first great lover to the future Aerea 'the Great'. Joined by Dornish ships and even a few stray Volantene galleys, Queen Rhaenyra's reinforcements gained more strength rounding The Arbor, before finally arriving at Pyke for the captains Reynes and Qorgyle to assess the situation.

While Lord Brandon was willing to risk the captive Loren's life, especially hearing that his young wife had given birth to their firstborn son in his absence, old Arthur Qorgyle suggested a more cautious, traditional siege. Captain Reyne's scare tactics, though abhorrent, had their intended effect already, with most of the Harlaw lords bending the knee and turning against their supposed holdout Prince, now holed up in the fortress of the Ten Towers. Lord Qorgyle's patience bore fruit; within a week of the siege, the self proclaimed Prince Vickon's Harlaw hosts turned against him, tying the man up in a bag before offering him to the besiegers, along with a very damaged Loren Lannister and the rest of the captives.

Vickon Greyjoy and his chief lieutanants were brought to Lannisport in a foul cage, where he was let loose into the mob gathered crying for justice. It is said he nevertheless killed half a dozen of his attackers before he was ultimately torn apart by the rabid crowd. Petyr Lannister did not survive his captivity, so despite his crimes during the war, Queen Rhaenyra named her goodbrother the Lord of Lannisport, and it was whispered that she may have given the Reynes Casterly Rock outright had it not been for the selling of the Ironborns.

Suddenly the balance of power shifted in the West, the golden lion limped its way out of the war while the Reynes saw themselves poised to dominate their former liege lords. Holding the mines of the mountains and the riches of Lannisport, the greatest prize yet awaited the red lions of Castamere: a seat on the Iron Throne for their blood to protect the family's newly lofty positions, once Rhaenyra and Lord Quenton's son Aenys inevitably impregnated Aerea Targaryen, heir to the Seven Kingdoms and Summer Sea, as the Targaryen realm becoming known as by now.

As the old Brandon Reyne was fond of saying late in his life, "gold might shine bright, but red is the color that draws blood..."

* * *

**Quenton Reyne - 166 AC**

He wasn't surprised when the King's daughter descended into the dungeons and into his cell, true to her word. Dressed in all her finery amidst the dingy setting, she no longer looked so waifish or childish. Quenton could only imagine his brother laughing once he heard his tale, bemoaning that he'd neglected taking him to court to meet all his newest royal patrons, else neither Reyne would be made to look such the fools in all the realm.

She didn't speak at first, merely handing him a small glass of wine in a plain copper cup, which he gulped down even as he appreciated the finery of the flavor.

"Lord Redwyne's best, hmmm?"

"My fucking big mouth," Quenton muttered. He looked up at Rhaenyra, who wore a slender ribbon of gold around her forehead, as if she were a petty Queen rather than First Magistress. Not that it mattered, little difference a title meant, except everything. "Might as well been drunk this entire time, excuses my stupidity at least." "Tell me, is your father going throw him into the Black Cells on account of me?"

"For smuggling, conspiring against trade laws, corrupting young highborns into avarice and law breaking?" That smirk, that infuriating smirk. "No, I daresay short of outright treason, Lord Redwyne's safe from such lacking...accommodations." Her purple eyes circled his dank cell bemusedly. "Which you've saved him from."

He had to sound back her words a second time to grasp the meaning. "Treason?" The very word scared him. It was why he avoided ever joining his brother in court. Brandon was a soldier who thought himself a statesman. At least Quenton knew himself better.

"Not outright rebellion, necessarily. But there are certain factions within my father's court who are displeased, oh, the usual things. Taxes, levies, the spoils of Essos. Then there's powerful families, you know, like the Redwynes, or Florents, who may see their liege lords weak, and wish to gain at their expense."

Quenton laughed. "Sounds like you're talking about my brother."

"To be sure," the Princess he thought a street brat named Lynna replied elegantly, "Lord Brandon has his uses. The Lannisters have their uses too, their name, to be specific. Contrary to what your brother might fancy sometimes to Jaehearys, the Reynes will never hold Casterly Rock, but certain allowances may be permitted because his person is of such valuable nature. Highgarden, however, is more valuable to the Crown than Casterly Rock these days, my father almost appointed Lord Lyonel Hand last year, he may well do so in the future..."

"So you'll use me to push Lord Redwyne back in line." Just because he disliked politics didn't mean he was wholly ignorant to it.

"Discretely, of course," Rhaenyra replied, as if she were impressed by his acumen. "Princess Aliandra is a dear friend of mine...but I'm not so foolish to deprive myself, or my subjects, of the finest Arbor Gold for the sake of friendship alone."

"But for politics..."

"You're learning." She turned to her guard, who poured more wine into his goblet until it was nearly filled to the brim, then stepped away to return to more gilded settings.

"I imagine I'll be out of here soon," Quenton said, interrupting her leave, "and my brother will have a good laugh about it with the King and Prince Jaehaerys." It would not hurt him to mention his family's close relationship with the famed Dragonknight, her brother, yet he swore he saw her brows flinch in anger at his mention. Nevertheless, he pressed on. "But my men, none of them have friends in court. Any court, even a shitty one in Pyke or The Crag or Castamere, save I..."

"Your care for them is touching." She did not appear to be mocking him.

"I pay them well, as you've observed. Better than most."

"Yet they're still criminals." Her eyes hardened. "Though, I suppose Lord Brandon could always use more sailors of quality in his fleet."

"And if some of them abandoned that very same fleet?"

The Princess laughed, a light and sweet sound, the same laugh which had charmed him enough in that damned tavern, against his better judgment, to trust a complete stranger. "I'll talk to my father, you'll talk to your brother, as you've mentioned so blatantly, neither one of us are without connections."

He nodded. The Princess's word was her word, and he'd trust her honor. He'd continue trusting her, because there was something about this woman, that made her no ordinary woman, not even any ordinary daughter to a King. Her lilt frame disappeared behind the cell door, but then he saw pale fingers reach against the edge, and the Princess poked her head back into his cell.

"But, there's never any harm and making new connections, is there?"

* * *

**The Citadel**

They called her many names. 'The Ugly', though that moniker was always unfair and untrue because, while Rhaenyra II Targaryen lacked the abjectly sublime beauty of many in her family, and of her mother's, there are few contemporary accounts of her appearance being anything worse than ordinary, though ordinary was seen by many as a gross sin for a Targaryen.

'The Ambitious', a more accurate term, though as First Magistress she withheld her long held ambitions towards the Iron Throne, for whatever reasons, longer than any would have expected of her.

'The Compromiser', 'the Conciliator', because for the sake of her ambitions, for the sake of a claim that was weaker than her nephew Daemon's, or his daughter Aerea's, she gave up any claim her children would have to the Throne. A good decision, in hindsight, considering her daughter Baela's later rule in Lys. The compromise of 181 AC gave Westeros and its eastern colonies two strong queens consecutively, undoing the damage wrecked by Jaehaerys II's short reign, setting the foundation for the long and mostly peaceful rule of Baelor 'the Andal'.

In the end though, one can imagine that Queen Rhaenyra II died happily and content, knowing that the people of her country, the smallfolk, the peasants, the hedge knights, knew her as 'the Good Queen Rhaenyra.' After so much internal tumult and external expansion, Rhaenyra II Targaryen's reign brought back to Westeros a sense of normalcy not felt since the reigns of Jaehaerys the Conciliator, or his son Viserys. Grand tourneys were held across the land, the riches of a burgeoning empire in the east brought both pride and wealth back to a flourishing seven kingdoms.

The example was set by the Queen herself, whose own personal life set the example for the rest of the country. Married to a spouse close enough to her own age for the first time in generations, neither husband nor wife embarking upon sordid affairs, and her disinherited children appeared mostly unremarkable, at least for the duration of her reign.

Queen Baela of Lys's excesses would not be apparent until well into Aerea I's reign. Her son Aenys, married to the future Queen, did his duty and eventually provided his wife with two requisite heirs, and if that marriage was far from the happiest, its sheer unremarkableness allowed the lords to breath sighs of relief, knowing that they would not have to go to war for the sake of yet more personal Targaryen caprices. The Queen's youngest daughter Daenerys, always a shy, reclusive girl, married a Targaryen cousin later in her life and disappeared into the annals of history, settling eventually in the valleys of the Rhoyne upon her small estate and vineyard...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rhaenyra II Targaryen (137 AC - 194 AC)  
> Reign (182 AC - 194 AC)
> 
> Also called:  
> Rhaenyra 'the Ugly'  
> Rhaenyra 'the Ambitious'  
> Rhaenyra 'the Compromiser'  
> Rhaenyra 'the Usurper'
> 
> Hands of the Queen  
> Horton Qorgyle (182 AC - 193 AC)  
> Bulton Reyne (193 AC - 194 AC)
> 
> Issue:  
> Baela Targaryen (b. 170 AC) - crowned Queen of Lys  
> Aenys Targaryen (b. 173 AC) - married Aerea I Targaryen  
> Daenerys Targaryen (b. 175 AC) - settled in Rhoynar colonies


	7. Aerea I Targaryen - "The Great"

**The Citadel**

No longer a girl, yet still energetic and youthful in mind and spirit, Aerea I Targaryen traded her Lysene throne for its pricklier counterpart in King's Landing in 194 AC at the age of thirty. Queen Rhaenyra II died quickly and unexpected when her heart gave way in the third moon of the year, so her heir did not arrive at the Red Keep until nearly two moons into her reign, where she was duly crowned below pale white walls of the yet to be completed Good Queen's Sept, ordered under her predecessor to be raised atop the ruins of the old Targaryen Dragonpit, (itself built on the ruins of the old Sept of Remembrance. Clearly Rhaenyra II had no intentions of following her brother's steps in trying to hatch a dragon, and neither did the new queen Aerea.)

Though she'd arrived with her husband Aenys, whom Aerea married below the steps of the Iron Throne five years before once the Prince had reached his maturity at six and ten, the royal marriage remained childless on the day of the new Queen's coronation, and most the realm suspected that the couple's problems with fertility lay not with the Queen Aerea, who'd borne her grandfather a bastard son, Rhaegal, sixteen years prior. A multitude of complications thus surfaced to the immediacy with the coronation concerning the next succession, an event most hoped remained far in the distance unless Aerea, who'd governed the Lysene lands as superbly as her predecessor, had managed to hide her grandfather's madness this far into her life.

As part of her compromise with her great aunt, until Queen Aerea produced an heir joining their two lines, Rhaenrya II's daughter Baela, soon to sail to Lys take her throne in Essos, became the new heir to the empire. The problem was that most of the court knew that Baela the Younger, soon to be known as Baela of Lys, was a woman unpromising and inconstant at best, and Aerea must have wondered to herself whether, or when, her successor would undo all she'd built in Lys (Baela the Younger would soon begin her reign by executing half her small council within two years of arriving in Lys).

Thus the lawful heir until the Queen conceived a child held little support within the realm, up to and including the Queen on the Iron Throne. The question of who came after Aerea, however, threatened to divide the country as bitterly as in its past wars of succession. The Queen's husband Aenys, Baela's younger brother, stood as the obvious successor along Rhaenyra's line, and many whispered that the man was somehow purposefully withholding his seed in order to succeed to a crown which he'd leave heirless by intent (though were that the case, Aenys could have always married late in life, after his wife's death). There was also Rhaenyra's youngest child Daenerys, who'd barely spoke a word in either of the courts she'd grown up in, so few gave her much consideration either, except the few less honorable lords who'd think they could mold the malleable girl to their will (Loren Lannister, the crippled Lord of Casterly Rock, was rumored to be included amongst this secretive faction, though surviving correspondence can neither prove nor disprove such allegations).

Then there was the alternative line of Jaehaerys II 'the Wicked' and Daemon I 'the Brief', the latter the Queen's father, the former king being very much alive and breathing on the day of his daughter's coronation. Jaehaerys II left behind nearly a dozen children (at least) of varying degrees of legitimacy, thus raising the prospect of absolute chaos were the succession to move backwards into his generation.

Making things somewhat simpler, however, was the fact that three of Jaehaerys II's daughters (two legitimate, one a bastard) had gone off to marry Aerea's only sibling Aegon, who'd sailed off to the Stepstones at a young age with a band of rascal knights from court, most of them second or third sons like himself, slaughtered and cowed a few half dozen small pirate settlements on the island of Bloodstone, then following in the footsteps of his ancestor Daemon Targaryen, pronounced himself King of the Stepstones. Such a succession would at least unite two generations of the wicked king's descendants, except few lords were eager to bend the knee to a rogue Prince playing at pirate, a possible madman who'd married three of his aunts (one of whom, Daenys, a widow; Visenya, who'd remained a spinster until she married her nephew; and Rhaenys, who'd abandoned her very much still living husband, Ser Robert Westerling of The Crag).

For the new Queen, there remained the option of obtaining a divorce from the High Septon and remarrying (presumably on the premise that failing a divorce, the realm would inevitably fall back into crisis, an arrangement purely political rather than religious or personal). Legitimizing her bastard son Rhaegel was an option too, and while the Queen still loved the young man dearly at this point of their lives, cracks in their relationship were already beginning to show when he announced his elopement with his half sister Oreana.

Thus then, did the return to the Red Keep of her father, the former King Daemon I, from Dragonstone in late 196 AC, whose second wife brought with her a girl of four, and carried a second child in her stomach, threaten to devolve an already tricky situation into a bloody quagmire from which Westeros might never recover...

* * *

**Aerea I Targaryen - 197 AC**

"What are you going to do about it? Disinherit me?"

"It's my right as Queen!"

He dodged his shoulder reflexively, and Aerea looked down at the small table beside her, where there stood a priceless jade vase she'd brought over from Lys, and realized her husband had expected her to hurl the object at him. Was that all he thought her as, a plain shrew?

"I'm kin too, don't forget! Kill me, you'll be remembered a kinslayer for the rest of your days!"

She was already a kinslayer, actually. They whispered about it, and all the whispers were true. When the wicked king returned from his duel with Ben Blackwood badly wounded, Aerea ensured that her grandfather remained alive and powerless for the last, tortuous months of his life. Lord Benjicot's men had taken control of the castle, and even Jaeherys's few remaining supporters saw there was no future with him, so Aerea ordered him down to the Black Cells, where she personally hammered nails through his palms and his thighs against a roughly cut wooden surface.

She'd descend into the dungeons each day to force food and water down his throat, so that he'd remain alive, lingering in pain, which she'd worsened by rubbing a thin paste of salt through his multiplying wounds. With a dull blade she'd stolen from the kitchens and kept in her room, the weapon she'd sworn she would kill him with were he to ever come for her child, especially if Rhaegel had been born a girl, the young Princess enjoyed poking new holes and ruptures into his immobile body, then pour salt and ale into the bloody gashes, laughing while he screamed and cursed her. The last cut went through into the side of his abdomen, a deeper and more fatal one that Aerea had intended, so there was no question, in her mind at least, as to who had dealt the final blow to King Jaehaerys II 'the Wicked'. Let Ben Blackwood have the glory and the realm's gratitude, she could keep for herself the wrath of the gods, and a shame she should have felt but did not.

"Aye, if I do, I'd kill your handsome young lover first, and make you watch!"

"You won't dare." Aenys shook when he spoke, clenching a fist at her. He shook out of fright, she knew, though he tried to mask it as anger. Not that the royal prince consort was that foolish. Taking the son of her Master of Coin as his lover was one thing. Trying to kill the Queen before the watchful eyes of Lord Commander Terrence Toyne another entirely.

Aerea had no intentions of killing Aenys or Gyles Florent. She didn't want to. But the fact that her spiteful husband would question her nerve made her heart boil, and she thought that if he continued his defiance she might very well make true on her threats. She hadn't intended at first to kill the last dragon either, her father's precious Fleshburner. After Jaehaerys died, Aerea had approached the small creature in the cells while awaiting Rhaenyra's arrival. Part of her had thought to tame the beast, make it her own, but the moment Aerea saw his wicked eyes, she knew that it was not possible, that however he'd hatched the thing, King Jaehaerys II Targaryen had somehow infused every breath of his wicked soul into the pet who was to become his mightiest weapon.

That same night Aerea walked into her father's chambers and took Blackfyre. Then she sliced it through Fleshburner's neck. The blade of Aegon 'the Conqueror' had never left her side since.

"He's confessed to everything. Lord Commander Terrence witnessed it too, heard every word. He'll confess again before all the court. If he decides to recant his testimony, the Gods know whose word they'll all trust. You and Ser Gyles? Or the Queen, and her Lord Commander?"

"What do you want?" He collapsed in resignation onto their marital bed, which they'd never shared once since arriving in King's Landing.

"I want my heir. The realm needs their heir."

"What makes you think I'm the problem," Aenys replied defiantly. Pillow biter or not, the man was still a dragon, who would not wilt easily. "Don't say Rhaegel, the Gods know you've drank enough moon tea since his birth to kill a small army."

"Yes, I've taken lovers," Aerea said, feeling her chest calming as she sat down, taking a glass of wine into her palm, hoping the liquid could dim the fire inside her heart. "I wouldn't have had to, if my husband ever shown any interest in me. If he'd bothered to stay with me for longer than half a fortnight after our marriage before leaving to hunt bandits on the Rhoyne..."

"It was my duty..."

"How many squires did you fuck, Aenys, riding the countryside, sharing camp each night with dozens of strapping young soldiers? How many bandits did you order to suck you off in exchange for mercy from the hangman's noose?"

"How many lovers did you take before we were married, hmmm? You think I didn't notice, that my _beloved_ betrothed was cuckholding me every night with men old enough to be my father? Or yours, for the matter?"

"I couldn't wait forever for you," Aerea relented. She was far from guiltless in the crime that was their marriage, though admitting it even with merely a nervous look away at an expressionless Ser Terrence gnawed at her very soul. The Queen cannot be wrong. The Queen cannot show weakness. None other than her predecessor Rhaenyra had written her this, not long into either women's reigns. "Would it have made a difference?"

"No," Aenys admitted. They'd both stopped shouting at each other.

His admission freed her. The failure of their marriage was not her fault. Or Aenys's really, only the Gods were to blame, for making it the only balm for the realm to avoid the disease of further civil war.

Though their betrothal had been political from the start, she'd wanted to love him. Aerea's mind was too hardened for childhood fancies by the time she sailed with Aenys her ward, to take her throne on Lys, but occasionally she did wonder, what if Aenys could grow up to love her, that she could have a young devoted husband like her ancestor the first Rhaenyra? Except Aenys refused to look at her, never shown interest in her even as he did grow into an admittedly handsome young man, his hair and eyes Valyrian, but face bearing the rugged traces of his Andal father. Aerea understood now why Aenys always had an excuse to be somewhere several days away from her, why most of the few occasions they'd performed their marital duties had ended in failure on his part, and cursed herself for being so foolishly blind to what lay right in front of her for so long. If she'd known earlier, it would have saved her a lot of heartache and fretting, that there was some hideous flaw with hee countenance, her body and form, that disgusted her husband to the point of seeking celibacy, or so she'd thought.

(Or that he could see through her, did see through her, into the deepest and darkest crevices of her hideous soul, and felt repulsed by her.)

"I'm not barren," she stated in almost a whisper. Before Aenys could protest, she continued. "Don't ask me to prove it. I know. I just know."

She didn't. But she needed Aenys to trust her. If the Queen was not barren now, it wouldn't be long before her statement proved no longer true. In her mind, both of them needed to believe, to make an heir and save the realm.

"And don't pretend it hurt you, when I took my lovers. Just admit that you never cared, that I never mattered to you."

He couldn't bring himself to say the words, but Aenys nodded. Was it enough for her? It would have to be.

"Are you going to kill him?"

'He loves him,' she realized, observing the desperate pleading in his eye. 'He genuinely loves this man.'

"Depends."

"The heir," Aenys laughed bitterly. "Gyles's life for your heir, is that your offer?"

How could he be so flippant about the fate of their family's empire?

"Our heir," the Queen reminded her consort. It _had_ to be _their_ heir, no other option would suffice. "I don't care how you do it, have Gyles Florent suck you off before you put it in me, and after, if you want. But you'll do it every night until I'm with child, is that clear?" She didn't allow him a chance to respond. "Until that day, you will not leave your quarters, you will not be allowed any wine or ale. You'll not be allowed to see Gyles, unless in my company, for the purposes of helping with the child..."

His shoulders sagged, evidence of a defeated man. Aerea had not wanted this to be so difficult, she'd promised herself she wouldn't get angry about it, but somehow that was impossible for the both of them. She didn't want to threaten Gyles's life either, not after he'd confessed everything to her, and given a Queen the greatest gift a condemned man could offer.

"You're fucking my father too?" It would not do for an interrogator to look so surprised, but Aerea could not have helped it at the moment.

"He's a good man," the beaten young knight replied. "A gentle man. No one understands him really..."

"Except for you, is that it? Let me guess, no one understands Aenys but you too?"

"I know it sounds preposterous, but..."

"Do they know? About each other?"

Gyles shook his head fervently, blushing in embarrassment.

"What do you want, Ser Gyles? Do you want to usurp my throne for Aenys and my father both, rule as their Queen with a cock?"

"No, no, no," the young man protested vehemently. "I'm loyal to Your Grace, I swear! I don't give two shits about all these politics, not like my father. I hate it, actually!" He spat when he uttered the accursed word. "I just want them. To be with them, to lie with them, to hear and feel the beating of a good man's heart next to me..."

'Love,' Aerea had thought. 'He's nothing but a foolish girl looking for love from princes and former kings.'

Then she'd returned to her chambers and laughed all night like a madwoman.

No, she would not have to be a kinslayer twice over, she would not have to order the execution of her own father, who'd arrived imperiously in court with his haughty wife, who'd immediately begun whispering to all in the court about everyone who had a better claim to the throne than the actual woman who sat in it. Much as she wanted, she wouldn't even have to order the bitch Terissa Farman's death. No, but Aerea would enjoy the look in the upstart woman's face when she'd threaten her with the news. They'd retreat back to Dragonstone if all went well, the woman's dreams of being queen and mothering queens and kings ruined by her unwitting husband's very nature, on that point Aerea could at least sympathize with her, if she wanted to.

And what of her father's life after that? Would Terissa leave him, her use for Daemon I Targaryen over? Aerea hoped so. He deserved happiness. Jaehaerys II's son had been told all his life what to do, who to love, that even after he was freed, from the wicked king, from the burdens of the throne, her father could not help but lock himself into yet another cage, as if by the very nature of his being, yet ironically against the very nature of his being. So if swallowing swords and buggering young knights was what her father truly wanted out of life, then Aerea hoped there remained some remnants of a king left in his soul for him to take what he truly wanted, for once in his life.

As long as it wasn't her throne.

And if it prevented her from becoming a kinslayer a second time over, all the better.

* * *

**The Citadel**

...while many condemned in horror when Queen Aerea carved her name in stone as a royal kinslayer, the Queen insisted that she'd had no other choice. To Queen Aerea, preservation of the realm she loved, one which saw nearly a decade of peace after the birth of her firstborn, a ruddy brown haired child she'd name Baelor, meant preservation of the succession which had wrecked so much grief for country and family during so many prior conflicts. The birth of a second son, Prince Aemon, three years later, yet another child bearing the very non-Valyrian features of Quenton Reyne, husband and consort to Rhaenyra II, should have settled the matter for good, yet the very existence of Rhaegel Waters, no ordinary bastard with a Queen Regnant for a mother and a King for a father, must have left unease in Queen Aerea's heart from the moment he'd been born.

That the young Baelor 'the Andal' resembled his Reyne grandfather seemed a boon to most of the court. While some whispered that the throne should only pass to and from Valyrians pure in look, most of the lords outside of Driftmark were secretly happy to finally bend the knee one day to a king who actually looked like them, and Queen Aerea herself was determined from the very beginning that her trueborn son inherit her crown, rather than the child whom she loved but nevertheless had been forced into her by a man she despised.

Not that the young Rhaegel Waters cared. He'd grown up a pleasant young man, well-liked in both the courts of Lys and King's Landing. Baelor's birth in 197 AC had little effect on the young knight, who'd shown to that point only an interest in riding and hunting in the Kingswood, or going out for long swims in Blackwater Bay. All seemed well, until it came to light the secret courting of his half sister and a fellow bastard, Oreana Storm, the wicked king's youngest surviving daughter, born to Alyssa Baratheon. A charming and bright young woman who'd arrived in King's Landing four years prior, Oreana had impressed her niece (yes, niece), Queen Aerea, enough to have served as one of her ladies in waiting.

The Queen likely tolerated their affair for some time, until Oreana broached her the news that Rhaegel suggested they elope and escape to Essos, if his mother did not accept their marriage, which stood in contrivance against King Viserys II's edict regarding sibling marriage. According to Oreana's revelations late in the woman's life, Queen Aerea encouraged her to proceed with the elopement, so that by his unlawful act of incest, Rhaegel Waters would blast the final nail in the coffin to any claim he'd have upon the Iron Throne. The problem was that the queen did not confide her hidden hand and ulterior motives to her son, who did not find out about the agreement for many years.

The marriage was duly condemned by all, but after the controversy faded, Aerea quietly named the couple Lord and Lady of The Orange Shore, a series of Lysene colonies along the Summer Sea not far from Volantis, seeing as the practice was not viewed with such abhorrence in lands which bordered more closely the old Valyrian freehold. The trouble likely began when the Queen legitimized not her son, but her aunt Oreana instead, still keen on putting forth every obstacle possible should Rhaegel one day challenge Baelor (or Aemon's) rule.

Clearly one of the two had to be legitimized to rule, even in Essos. Yet, it was obvious to all observers that the young man sailed to his new lands most unhappily, because if the Queen kept her cards hidden regarding her bastard son's elopement, she proved equally and infuriating quiet, from Rhaegel's point of view, regarding his lack of legitimization. Though husband and wife were to rule their new realm equally, the fact remained that the Lady Oreana would naturally be seen as the superior of the two due to her elevated status, and naturally enough, those under their rule gravitated naturally to Oreana Targaryen (though likely due to her actual skill and competence as much as her legitimacy).

Oreana Targaryen handled the pressures of ruling admirably, negotiating extensively with the Volantene nobility, deferring tariffs, allowing many of the more powerful families the opportunity to buy shares of the richest farms and mills of the lands on the cheap, while demurely obliging Baela of Lys with polite and diplomatic, if noncommittal letters assuring the woman of her eternal loyalty (for their domains still fell by law under Queen Baela's rule, though many speculate that Aerea explicitly instructed Oreana to move the lands closer to Volantis's political orbit in order to subtly undermine her cousin and goodsister, their status as royal bastards giving them protection from Baela's worst caprices). Slowly, word began spreading of how her husband chafed at his wife's continually improving reputation, secretly undermining her by promising the least deserving of their vassals impossible riches, concessions, and titles that Lady Oreana could never agree to, eventually openly praising Baela while insulting the Volantene elite that Oreana continued to court.

Their childless marriage flailed and worsened over the next decade, splitting the court into two factions, one Volantene, the other Baelene (for the reign one madwoman cannot fairly represent or define the proud, ancient city), until in 205 AC, when Lord Rhaegel banished his wife from Seagate, their newly built castle, while she was treating with merchants in Volantis. Ordered exiled from their lands forever, Lady Oreana turned towards her many allies in the city for support. Word arrived soon enough that Rhaegel's supporters had been overpowered, her husband imprisoned by the vast overwhelming majority of subjects who supported and loved her rather than her bastard husband. Rather than punish Rhaegel, or even seek a very justified divorce, the magnanimous future Queen reconciled with her unworthy husband and freed him from his confinement. It was a decision she would come to regret deeply.

Imprisonment, however genteel, took its further toll on Rhaegel's mind, no doubt acerbated with a severe and cross letter from his mother admonishing him for his actions. The bastard prince planned his revenge carefully, gathering all the enemies of Oreana's fair rule and hiring a band of sellswords for his final coup, storming his wife's chambers in the dead of night and throwing her into the same chambers he'd been imprisoned in years before.

Lord Rhaegel proved a much less kind warden to his wife, and word spread quickly from Volantis to King's Landing of how he'd ordered Oreana beaten regularly in the dungeons, even raped, some of the more sordid accounts claimed (and Queen Oreana remained mum on, thus hinting towards the worst). Ravens arriving from King's Landing were ignored, and war loomed. Queen Aerea, aptly informed of the goings ons of Volantis by her lover Astorio Maegyr, youngest son of Lord Paramount Rymio and considered the great love of her life, needed but send one scroll before the Volantene fleet sailed to besiege the castle, while ships sailed from Dorne and the Arbor in case Baela went to war on behalf of her champion (the Queen of Lys was, to her credit, determined enough in her self preservation to not go to war against the Iron Throne).

Worried that an increasingly desperate Rhaegel would kill his prisoner, Prestyr Maegyr, Rymio's son and Astorio's brother led a daring nighttime raid, rescuing Lady Oreana and slaying all of her immediate captors. The prisoner safe, if hungry and weary from her ordeal, the castle was stormed the next day, and Rhaegel Waters sent back to his mother in rope and chain.

Many, including Rhaegel himself, expected his rough treatment on the journey punishment enough, perhaps augmented by a banishment to the Night's Watch, but the unhappy bastard saw only one brief night in King's Landing before he was beheaded under the watchful eyes of his mother, seated in the Iron Throne and showing no grief or emotion of any sort as she watched her firstborn son die by her orders.

Many whispered that the Spring sickness which arose in Lannisport the follow year was divine judgment upon Queen Aerea's crimes against the Gods. If so, the Queen fought back immediately, ordered a strict quarantine of the city by land and by sea the moment word of the sickness reached King's Landing. The disease claimed the life of the great Brandon Reyne along with tens of thousands inside the city, yet Aerea never relented, and both Reyne and Lannister armies patrolled all the roads and villages nearby to enforce the quarantine on the penalty of death. The epidemic subsided, and within the year Aerea breathed a sigh of relief at news of another death in her dynasty.

Queen Baela of Lys died at the age of forty with three bastard children and no legitimate heirs with her husband, Lord Mace Tyrell of Highgarden (brother to Lord Paramount Leo). Many suspected poison at the hands of her many enemies, families of the magisters she'd ordered tortured and killed for crimes as imaginary as an alleged evil eye cast towards the queen in court, much less actual enemies once evidence of her tyranny was proven without a doubt. The Targaryen name on the island, so carefully built and crafted by two women who would eventually ascend to the Iron Throne, had been ruined within the same generation in the city, so rather than appoint one of Baela's bastards or a distant Targaryen cousin to succeed her, Aerea instead named as Queen of Lys Phinearys Rogare, a direct descendant of Magister Lysandro, father of King Viserys's wife Larra. While the two women were distant cousins, the new Queen of Lys possessed no dragon's blood in her veins, assuring those she ruled of her sanity, and Phinearys's appointment marked the first of the many great decisions which would not only shape Aerea's legacy, but that of the burgeoning empire which to further sprout after her death.

The new Rogare Queen was grateful enough for her appointment to ignore the transfer of the Orange Shore to the newly formed Volantene crown, under the auspices of their new King and Queen. Always popular in the city, even moreso after her torment to the point of being viewed as a living martyr, Oreana Targaryen's marriage to Prestyr Maegyr ensured that when Aerea placed a crown upon their heads, the new joint monarchs of Volantis were both beloved and acclaimed in city they ruled, accepted as sovereigns of native blood, respected through both merit and tradition. (Their child would be a quarter Baratheon also, not that Stormlander blood mattered out at the mouth of the great Mother Rhoyne).

A previously uneventful reign suddenly saw the weathering and triumphant survival of three successive crises, so none could blame Aerea I if she settled back into her throne in late 209 AC ready for a well deserved rest. Here then, it behooves curious minds to examine how the death of one woman from a minor family would engulf both continents into a war after so much strenuous work done by the queen to keep the peace...

* * *

**Aerea I Targaryen - 213 AC**

The sound of the screaming faded as the crack of burnt kindling and flesh boiling overwhelmed what life remained within the soul of the condemned. Slowly, Aerea stood mesmerized as the flames grew twicefold then twicefold after the dead was dead, enveloping the vast and mostly empty chambers of the great temple of Myr, where the priests who'd presided over thousands of ritual burnings now fell victim to their own foul medicine one by one.

"Bring the next one up," a voice called, after they'd waited for the entire pyre to be collapsed and reduced to ashes. A man of about forty years was dragged unwillingly to the stake, both prisoner and warden choking through the flames and wading ankle deep through the scattered ashes of of the dead. The last man who'd burned faced his death with calmness and dignity, as if he actually believed in the great paradise to come. This one struggled, fought his captor, screamed, and Aerea thought she'd enjoy the coming execution more. She liked their fear, their fight, or why else order this spectacle and savor so sweetly every single execution?

"I curse you, witch," the crazed, fanatical priest screamed at her, his voice so high it sounded like it belonged to a woman, or an eunuch. His brown beard seemed to waft in the wind, though there was no breeze inside the hallowed halls of R'hllor's great temple. The Queen thought that, if she stared hard enough, she could see flames blazing inside his eyes. "You'll suffer for this."

Aerea merely smiled, and gripped tighter the hand of her beloved. Astorio held her hand securely, rubbing the center of his thumb against the side of her palm. When they lit the flame to burn the priest, she felt her insides burning along with him, the pain of lust, not the pain of fire, and wished that they were alone, so she could rub herself, while her enemies cried out in pain and hatred and most importantly, in defeat.

"You should ask to join them," she whispered to her beautiful, tan skinned lover. "You'd suffer less by fire, than what I'm about to do to you tonight."

"I survived last night, didn't I?" Though she did not look at him, she could hear the wink and grin hidden in his subdued voice. "That was after we burned their high priest too, I'd think that'd get a better rise out of Your Grace."

It had been a tough decision, whether to make the High Priest watch all his priests burn one by one, or burn him first, forcing his horrified followers to watch. Aerea had chosen the latter, because of the sheer sacrilegiousness of it, the sheer despair edging on madness of forcing a man to witness the most painful and tormenting end for a figure they believed almost divine. It would never happen, but that didn't stop her from musing a similar scene, except inside the hallowed confines of the Starry Sept, her victim the High Septon, that fat, pompous asshole...

"You presume to tell your queen what turns her on?"

Astorio laughed. "Forgive this lowly servant..."

"You know exactly what you're doing," Aerea snapped. To a stranger, her words would have sounded like an admonishment, but Astorio knew, he knew her, everything about her, her body, her mind, the deepest, darkest reaches of her soul. And he loved her anyway.

That they made love in the very chambers of the formerly unburnt High Priest of Myr added to the sacrilege, and to her pleasure. That she could flout such her dalliances, well where was the condemnation of the Faith when her grandfather Jaehaerys bred half a dozen bastards into the realm, and forced her into kinslaying? Where was the Faith's indignation when half the petty kings who came before the Targaryens all took their mistresses as they will, except Aerea doubted few of them loved like she loved Astorio, and he loved her.

The Queen counted. "Thirteen priests left. Then we start with the magisters and the nobles."

"Should take up most of the day tomorrow," Astorio commented indifferently, as if discussing taxes or settling the succession of an unimportant, minor castle. "Think we can start with the firstborn sons before the sun sets."

"Let's do the firstborns first," Aerea whispered thoughtfully. "You were right, fathers watching their sons die would be so much more fun." Again, she pictured the two of them inside the temple alone, riding her lover while she stared into the eyes of the men and women burned alive by her orders.

"I'm always right," Astorio said playfully. "That's why you keep me around."

"The only reason..."

'Barbrey's War.' That had been Astorio's idea. All this war, really, from the planning, to the execution, each siege and battle her lover had predicted unfailingly. Volantis fought on her side because of him, their red priests and priestesses proclaimed herself as nearly a God because of Astorio's efforts. Though Tyrosh fought them too, Pentos sent only one small company of sellswords, because of Astorio, and Braavos and Qohor ignored Myr's calls for allies altogether.

"It's up to you," he'd whispered to her on the plush linens inside Maegor's Holdfast, when her blood boiled as fiery as the flames before them now, "what kind of war you'd have. All the rest of Essos hates you enough already, they fear the dragon seeks to conquer the entire continent, build an empire greater than Old Valyria ever stretched. Make your war one of conquest, and you'll be fighting enemies combined from Braavos to Slaver's Bay until the day you die. But a war pursued for justice's sake..."

"For revenge," she'd seethed.

"Yes, revenge," Astorio had agreed. "You can have conquest. Or revenge. But not both."

"And revenge means I'll have to give up what I've conquered by right."

"A sign of good faith." After one and a half decades in Westeros by her side, his accent had wavered, but never disappeared entirely. "Leave Tyrosh unmolested, leave Myr in their own hands after the war, only then can you prove to all the Free Cities you mean them no threat, no harm."

"And I'd have the red witches of Volantis calling me some goddess."

"The Prince That Was Promised," Astorio promised her. "His ancestor, actually, to come through your line...that's what Prestyr says the Priestess will preach."

Aerea did not know how he'd cooked that one up. She hadn't even been aware of the rivalry between the servants of R'hllor in Myr and Volantis, which Astorio was keen to stoke on her behalf. It should have all been a farce, yet it hadn't felt like it when the priestess from Volantis approached her outside the walls of Myr, days before the city fell.

"The savior will come," the woman with red eyes matching her robe, and hair darker than night had promised her by the eerie glow of the night's fire, "when the fire meets fire, when the three heads of the dragon and the three heads of the great river are one, under the shadow of ice dripping down the abandoned walls of the fallen towers..."

"She believes it," Aerea had realized, admitting as much to Astorio later that night. "She actually believes the bullshit you fed her."

Astorio merely shrugged. "The acolytes in my city are strangely effective at convincing themselves what to believe."

Another priest finished burning, and Aerea felt an odd, childish delight in her heart. Was this how the wicked Jaehaerys felt, she could not help but wonder, when he raped her? When he tortured his captives in the black cells, when he hatched a dragon and dreamed of burning more of the realm than even Aegon or Aemond? Such thoughts no longer troubled her as they once had, she merely considered with detached curiosity whether this darkness been planted inside her by his accursed seed. Or had it been innate, sure as the blood which sailed through her veins even since she'd slept in her mother's womb? Was she every bit as bad as Maegor the Cruel, or Jaehaerys the Wicked...except she could control her urges better? Wait nearly a lifetime before indulging in them, when her opportunity finally came to her inside the great temple in Myr?

Because Astorio had pointedly given her a choice, and she'd chosen vengeance, where every one of her ancestors from Aegon I to Viserys II had chosen conquest and legacy, she'd forsaken it all so she could release her heart's deepest desires at long last, to make her enemies suffer as she'd suffered once, even if those horrid days felt a lifetime ago.

"Have they found a successor yet," she asked Astorio.

"Lord Donnel will choose one soon," he replied neutrally, speaking of the Lord Paramount of the Vale. Donnel's brother Conrad had been her lover before Astorio, until she'd appointed him to the Small Council. Same as Arthur Qogyle, the moment he served her in a royal capacity, the moment she would not allow herself to enjoy their company in a personal manner anymore. It was just good politics, and they all understood. It was probably a good thing both men were dead, so as to not protest the exception she'd made for Astorio.

Because he was indeed exceptional in every way.

"They must agree to Barbrey's statue," Aerea reminded him, the memorial she'd ordered built outside the walls of the temple, once they gave Myr back to Myr, whomever they'd select to take the reins of the broken city the armies of two continents would leave behind in the coming days. "Else I'll return myself, and have him burnt, after his family, wives and children included."

"I think the lesson's taken," Astorio mused coldly. That was why they were perfect for each other. Her lover clearly did not delight in the pain and the suffering they wreaked on their enemies, he wasn't cruel like herself, in these rare moments when she could indulge in her darkest delights. Nor did he judge. She could not have guessed it, the breadth of his heart, how perfectly it matched with her own, when he'd been presented in court to her the first time nearly five and ten years before, a mere boy of five and ten. Yet she should have known, when he'd ignored his own kin once presented the Queen's attentions, and discussed dispassionately to her upon command all the political workings of his native city, including his father's failings as Lord Paramount of Volantis in front of the man himself.

"I was aiming for a place in your Small Council," he confided to her not long afterwards. "Not your bed."

"You're too young for a place on my Small Council," she'd said, fondling his smooth, tan skin. As impressed as she'd been by the young prodigy at first, he'd been merely a trifling for her at the time, one night's distraction who'd fade away, like the few other lovers she'd chosen out of lust, and not love.

"But not your bed." He dared to mock her as he spoke, Aerea realized then. He had spirit, enough for her to keep around for the time being. He hadn't left her side since. Even now, when she was an old woman and he a weathered man of war and politics, they still made each other feel like Florian and Jonquil. Was this what Aegon had with Rhaenys, Aerea wondered, old Jaehaerys with Alysanne, Rhaenyra with Benjicot Blackwood? It was one of the reasons she did not believe in any gods, of fire, or numbering in a quantity between six and eight, because how could their love be so true, and the love between the husband sanctified for her by the High Speton such a farce?

A cloud of ash, dusting the floor with another soft layer of enemies destroyed, of joy added to her heart. Even Donnor Stark looked aghast at this point, face as pale as the winter snows, his lust for vengeance clearly not exceeding her own. Aerea had often wondered whether they'd been lovers, the Lord of Winterfell and Barbrey. No point in asking, too much politics clouding the truth.

"The difference is," she whispered to Astorio, and no one at all, "they deserve it..."

* * *

**The Citadel**

...of all the unwitting pawns of history through the centuries of the many continents, few are as riddled with curiosity and fateful coincidence as the sad tale of Barbrey Poole. The youngest child of Ser Medger, Castellan of Winterfell, and betrothed to a distant cousin in Summerfell on the Lysene shore at a young age, the death of her promised found her a ward in the court of Lys, where Aerea still reigned in her starter throne. Described as a sweet girl both unremarkable in face and mind, the young girl nevertheless made friends easily in court, and soon became a dear friend of the future Queen. Before she ascended to the Iron Throne, Aerea arranged for the young woman to marry her nephew Aerys, son of her only brother Aegon, the self-proclaimed King of the Stepstones.

While Aerys Targaryen had long given up on that fleeting title by the time of his marriage to Barbrey, the one remnant of his father's dreams of conquest was his years spent in the Water Gardens of Dorne seeking support for his father's wars, where both he and his wife befriended the young Prince of the kingdom, Obaro Martell. Then, in the last years of the charming young woman's tragic life, she'd spent enough time in court to befriend Lady Myrielle Tyrell, daughter of the Lord of Highgarden and older sister to the future queen Dalla Tyrell, already betrothed in 211 AC to Prince Baelor, heir to the Targaryen Empire.

It was thus that when four Tyroshi guards captured a stray ship carrying Prince Aerys and his unassuming wife, who was yet intricately connected with four of the most powerful families on two continents, they thought little of sending the woman to Myr while releasing the Prince after a stern beating. While the Tyroshi magisters despised Aerys's father, threatened by the idea of the flailing empire the stray dragons sought to build in the Stepstones, they were not foolhardy enough to execute an actual Targaryen Prince, not when his wife was a good enough hostage to keep for the so-called Kingdom of the Three Daughters.

Ambitions to reclaim Lys for their historical alliance notwithstanding, the High Priest and Archon of the Kingdom, its very name an archaic reflection of past glories, ordered the somewhat highborn woman to be sent to Myr where, whether out of crazed religion fervor or a sheer lack of common sense, Archon Girodos 'the Mysterious' ordered his most valuable hostage burned alive in the Great Temple of R'hllor.

Proponents of an expanding empire were few on the continent of Westeros, and both the Queens Rhaenyra II and Aerea I, up until 211 AC, were focused mainly on the prospering of the lands held by the dragons, than any new unconquered domains to the east. Yet, Barbrey Poole's horrific and barbaric death managed to unite the great families of Westeros across all cultures and religions, from Dorne to the Andal halls of Highgarden, to the Valyrian chambers of the Red Keep, and the reclusive halls of Winterfell in the far north. All agreed that Myr had to suffer, and a woman such as Barbrey Poole, born to nobles, married to a Prince, beloved of all the Westerosi elite, _simply_ _could_ _not_ _die_ at the hand of foreign savages, much less in such an insidious manner. Thus commenced Barbrey's War, fought in the name of a woman considered unremarkable in all areas except her general affability.

There has always been great controversy, of course, regarding the application of the moniker 'the Great' to the reign and person of Aerea I Targaryen. Many of my fellow maesters believe if such a weighty nickname were to be applied to any man or woman of the early Targaryen dynasty, then it should have befallen more deserving candidates such as Jaehaerys 'the Old King', Viserys II 'the Wise', or the great conqueror himself. There is also the belief, not unmerited, that many Targaryenists over romanticize Aerea I's reign due to the fact that she was the last monarch of Valyrian look and features to sit upon the Iron Throne until the reign of Arya I Targaryen, 'the Valyrian', nearly three hundred fifty years after her death.

Ultimately, it is of the opinion of this scholar that there is nothing undeserved about the legacy left behind by Aerea 'the Great', and her greatness lay very much in the lack of any so-called great achievements occurring within the strict time-frame of her rule. By explicitly declaring war upon the Kingdom of the Daughters on the basis of justice for Barbrey Poole, and promising to relinquish any lands or cities conquered during the conflict, Queen Aerea and Astorio Maegyr were able to immediately dissolve any nascent coalition to be formed against the burgeoning Targaryen Empire on Essos, from Qohor to Pentos to Braavos. While ample credit ought to be give to her predecessor Rhaenyra, the fact is that the imperial fleet reached its greatest heights during the reign of Queen Aerea, exceeding even Braavos and its famed Arsenal in production capacity and skill, providing her the ability to immediately disarm the oceanic theater of the war and one half of the great cities set against her, so that Myr fell after only a single campaign and boilerplate, if typically bloody and tedious, siege.

Credit needs to be given to the Queen's lover and Hand, Lord Astorio Maegyr, whose brother already reigned as King of Volantis by the time of Barbrey's War. Always Aerea's expert in all topics eastern, Lord Maegyr was said to have argued that incorporating into the empire two additional Free Cities, along with their much disputed lands, would incite more trouble and internal strife than they were worth, within a domain he already considered too bulky and decentralized for its own good. While Lys had been incorporated since the reign of Rhaenyra I, and Volantis since Viserys II, neither governing structures could remain stable under the prospect of unending war and expansion. The obligation of the dragons, Astorio advised, lay solely in the proper and responsible governance of the lands it held, and any outside ambitions threatened to break the contract by which their cities along the Summer Sea had agreed to, in swearing fealty to King's Landing.

Lord Astorio's counsel proved true enough. Though Myr and Tyrosh remained independent after Barbrey's War, both cities were too weakened to pose a threat to the Targaryen empire for generations to come (especially the former, as Aerea's harsh decrees robbed the city both of the entirety of its ruling nobility, as well as most of its treasury, forcibly transferred into the coffers in King's Landing, and from there, all the various lords and houses which displayed the most loyalty for their Queen). Given the cause of a common enemy, Barbrey's War tied further together the ruling elites of Lys and Volantis with the Iron Throne, viewing the latter less and less as as conquering intruders. Given breathing room and facing few external threats, the crown's eastern colonies thrived and expanded exponentially in area and population and, shortly before Aerea I's death in 219 AC, King's Landing and Sunspear rejoiced alike at the restoration of Ny Sar, the ancient capital of Queen Nymeria and her Rhoynar ancestors to their contemporary Dornish brethren...

* * *

...obviously Queen Aerea's reputation in Myr contrasts greatly with her renown in the boundaries of the Viserian Empire. While the Queen remained true to her word and left Myr as free as she'd conquered it, the same could not be said about the entirely of the ruling elite, every single red priest and priestess along with all of the ruling magisters, lords, major merchants, and their firstborn sons all burnt alive, that hundreds of men and women would befall the same fate as the Queen's friend Barbrey is still considered an excessively cruel and overreaching form of justice today and certainly among Myrish citizens at the time, but not amongst a Westerosi populace who regarded their enemies with the bigotries common to the era.

While the Iron Throne continued to disclaim continental ambitions after the war, the fact was that two of the greatest Free Cities had been left smoldering shells of themselves, if not physically, then as political entities. The added fact that Aerea was able to take advantage of the Red Schism between the R'hllorists of Volantis and Myr, installing the priests of the former city in the Great Temple in Myr, allowed her to leave behind a city, if unconquered, then propagandized to worship her family as deities for the century to come, prophecies which seemingly reached their fruition during the Long Night. Of course, if the magisters in Pentos and Sealords in Braavos and Bearded Priests of Norvos could foresee what was to come, when Targaryen domains would stretch from the Summer Sea to the Shivering Sea by the end of Baelor I 'the Andal's' reign, they might have reconsidered their neutrality during Barbrey's War and the true, yet skewed, promises of Aerea 'the Great', the Queen who could've conquered half the Free Cities, but left them in peace so as to entrench further in stone the foundations for her descendants to complete the conquest when its time finally came...

* * *

**Astorio Maegyr - 216 AC**

He felt a man much older than his actual age. From the time since he'd been a child, Astorio had read every book his parents could buy, about wars, about histories, tales recalling the glories of Aegon the Conqueror, the dragonlords of Old Valyria, or even the tales, more fables than fact to be sure, of Old Grazdan the Great, who forged the first empire known in the memories of man. His parents tolerated his aspirations towards a Westerosi knighthood, his friends mocked him for aspiring to be a common sellsword, yet he'd been as determined in learning the skills of the sword as he'd been with his books. He loved Volantis, Astorio still did, yet he'd always been drawn westwards, if only because Westeros offered him the prospect of respect and renown as a soldier; in Volantis, only scorn.

Yet he'd shared the bed, the heart, and the soul of the greatest valyrian past or present for nearly fifteen years before finally receiving the opportunity to fight a war for her. By then, Astorio was no longer sure of the warrior's path to glory, having dedicated most of his grown life to Aerea's efforts against war, towards keeping the peace over all her vast domains. Though he knew plenty of history and possessed a scholar's knowledge of politics, he'd known nothing of what it actually meant, to rule, to keep at bay a court both vicious and tempting, until he'd learnt at his Queen's side, watching her, heeding all her lessons.

"You were right," he whispered to her, though he sensed she was already asleep. Slowly, he drew down their bedsheet, and admired the curves of her body as it waxed and waned with each breath, admiring her plump, supple breasts which belonged to a woman, not a girl. They lay naked like this nearly every night, as if they were man and wife, the pretense of her marriage long a royal relic. It had killed him when he'd been younger, when he was not allowed inside her chambers when she was busy trying to conceive her second child with Prince Aenys. Though he knew the man probably found the very act disgusting, Astorio could not yet help at wanting to strangle the prince with his bare hands for daring to defile the body of the woman he loved with every fiber of his being.

"About what," Aerea whispered back to him, eyes closed. So she was still awake. Astorio turned, and cradled her body into his own, relishing the touch of their skin together.

When he first set sail in a galley with hundreds of eager warriors, he'd couldn't but help feel that boyish excitement in his heart, the fruition of long dormant dreams towards glory in war he'd long known of its foolishness. There was glory indeed, to anyone who hadn't seen the war itself. Even of the Battle of Myrth Crossing, when he'd masterminded the ambush and encirclement of the bulk of the Myrish sellswords behind a small knoll by the river, he'd remembered feeling only trepidation watching the fourteen year old Prince Baelor charge into the thickest of the fighting alongside the hulking masses of Lyonel Baratheon and the lunk Duncan.

"Would you have ordered my death," he asked her, "if Baelor did not survive Myrth Crossing?"

"Most gruesomely," his queen joked in her sleep. The young prince hadn't been a great fighter then, or now, but Aerea's precious heir survived if only through the efforts of the man Duncan and the Laughing Storm, who fought like a man possessed, both to keep himself from being killed, and to preserve the life of his most precious squire. "You didn't have a choice, did you? It would have been treason either way."

"That fucking brute Lyonel was little help." Lyonel Baratheon was much more than a plain brute, Astorio knew this, but that had not ameliorated his rage at the man on that day, egging the young prince towards battle against Astorio's wishes.

"War's awful, isn't it," he mused, letting the soft touch of her skin comfort him, her breast now resting atop his wrist. "Even now, I can't sleep, I just...I just think about it. Everything that happened, everything that could've gone wrong...everything that did go wrong..."

The siege had been the worst of it. So many men killed, wounded, flesh rotting even as they lived, surviving mild skirmishs only to die feverish and mad days later. Myr held on for nearly a year before the city finally fell, and Astorio counted those long moons as the worst of his life. Aerea had it right from the start, there was nothing in this world worse than war. Baelor understood this too, after that first battle, the young man chastened and mostly silent for the weeks that followed.

"You're more sensitive than you realize," Aerea mumbled to him, holding him, nestling her head against his chest like a young girl cozying up against her first lover, of which he was certainly not, "but that's why I love you."

"You're less sensitive than most people would guess," Astorio replied. "Not sure if that's the reason I love you, but it'll do."

"Hmmm," she whispered, snoring lightly, their entire conversation taking place in a dream of hers. He closed his eyes, and let the sound of her breaths steal his worries away.

He knew they mocked him, for loving an old woman. Yet to Astorio, his queen looked no different than the first time he'd seen her so many years before, perched like a goddess upon the Iron Throne. She was a small woman, who fit neatly against his body, and when it was just the two of them together like this, he felt more a husband holding his wife, than the courtier and fleeting mistress that he was to the crown. There would be no wife for him if he outlived his queen, how could he marry after her? There could be other women, he may well father bastards one day, but any children he had would matter little to his legacy.

"Legacy," he muttered to himself, sounding out the strange word, one of the more truly foreign phrases to the common tongue, Astorio thought. No, concepts like legacy and children and all that such were meant for his brother, sitting on his throne half a world away. As for himself, they might remember him for a trifling war and a decently fought battle, but he wouldn't be alive to remember his memory after his death.

No, he'd think of quiet moments like this one, on his dying day, and that was all that mattered to the legacy Astorio Maegyr cared to leave for himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aerea I Targaryen (163 AC - 219 AC)  
> Reign (194 AC - 219 AC)
> 
> Also called:  
> Aerea 'the Beautiful'  
> Aerea 'the Cruel' (in Myr and vicinity)
> 
> Hands of the Queen  
> Arthur Qorgyle (194 AC - 202 AC)  
> Conrad Arryn (202 AC - 208 AC)  
> Astorio Maegyr (208 AC - 219 AC)
> 
> Issue:  
> Rhaegel Waters (b. 180 AC) - rebelled & executed by Aerea I  
> Baelor Targaryen (b. 197 AC) - succeeded to Iron Throne  
> Aemon Targaryen (b. 200 AC) - married into Rogare royal family of Lys


	8. Baelor I Targaryen - "The Andal"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This will be a very long chapter, like the last one. Like the last one, it covers a pretty significant amount of time (30+ years in this one, 20+ years the last), and I've still had to cut various scenes I'd originally planned writing. But I hope those you who are along for the ride will enjoy it, especially as we see an interesting path carved out for Duncan the Tall here, and are introduced with hints of ASOIAF canon characters as we come closer to the era of the books and show.

**Ser Duncan - 209 AC**

His shoulder still hurt from the good thumping the big lord gave him. Chest too, somewhere under his armor were some pretty bad bruises, for sure it would hurt once he peeled everything off that night, though he didn't think his mind would linger on the pain. He barely felt it now. Duncan of Flea Bottom had come to Ashford Tourney hoping to impress one lord or another, enough to give him a place in a keep, where he could fill his stomach with some warm soup and an occasional meal of mutton. Brought before the Queen's tent however, after riding against, _losing_ , to Lord Lyonel Baratheon, the Laughing Storm, he could not have even imagined even in his wildest dreams.

"It's him, mother! The big knight, the one bigger than even Lord Lyonel!"

"Yes Baelor, I know." Queen Aerea I Targaryen sat slouched against a small chair in her royal tent, flipping disinterestedly through a small stack of letters. She seemed bored. Or sad, Duncan couldn't tell. But clearly the queen did not share her son's enthusiasm in his presence.

Wearily, the Queen turned to face him. Her purple eyes squinted, looking him up and down. Duncan was used to this by now, people marveling at his height. But not by the damned queen.

"Ser Duncan." When she did speak, all malaise seemed to disappear, and a smile drew upon her lips. "My son believes you're the tallest man he's ever laid eyes upon."

Duncan bowed uneasily, first to Her Grace, then to the Crown Prince Baelor, clad in an immaculate silver armor which shined the same color as Valyrian steel, clutching his training sword as if he were the finest knight in the land. 'That fine armor's wasted on a boy of eleven', he thought, but did not speak.

"Your Grace, I believe Prince Baelor knows aplenty about tall lads such as myself, squiring for Lord Lyonel."

Standing behind the Queen, the man who was the cause of all his hurt chuckled lightheartedly. "It was a fine joust, Ser Duncan. Five tilts in the first round, I never would've expected."

"Aye, at least you won and get to go on, my lord." Duncan was still bitter about that. A fine match as it was for all the spectators, a loss in the first round was nothing to be proud of, and he could only hope that his endurance against a man he figured might very well win the entire tourney was enough to have caught someone's eye. That he'd been granted an audience with the queen herself proved hopeful for his prospects, though he doubted he'd be serving in the Red Keep anytime soon.

"That was my idea," the boy prince said proudly, tugging on his mother's dress when she did not look at him the moment he spoke up. "I told Lord Astorio, look at him, wouldn't it be great if he matched up against Lord Lyonel?!"

Both their attentions turned to the thin man with the foreign complexion standing quietly by himself in the corner.

"Apologies, Ser Duncan," the Volantene lord said to him bemusedly, stepping out from the shadows. "I'm sure you hoped to ride here past the first day of competition but...this was the only way I could promise Prince Baelor that you'd go against Lord Lyonel...isn't that right?"

"That was the best match I've ever seen," Baelor agreed, eyes gleaming happily, hands clapping joyously.

He'd heard of Lord Astorio Maegyr, the Queen's new Hand and reputed lover. Behind him, Duncan spied a younger boy who had evidently been hiding behind the Queen's new Hand, who looked barely older than the Laughing Storm. Which was to say, much younger than the Queen.

"So Ser Duncan of...," the Queen squinted her eyes, obliging him to continue.

"Flea Bottom, Your Grace."

"Ah, Flea Bottom it is," she agreed. "Well, Ser Duncan of Flea Bottom, I thank you for providing Prince Baelor with a delightful first day to this tourney." She smiled, he stepped forward, bent his knee, kissed softly the back of her hand, and was duly allowed his freedom from the royal presence.

A firm hand clapped him on his back as he walked away under the careful eye of several whitecloaks. "Ser Dunk of Flea Bottom," Lyonel Baratheon laughed. "I knew Ser Arlan, he was a decent jouster. Never heard of any place named Pennytree, man probably made it up, has a good sound to it."

"My lord, I believe it's a village in the..."

"Talltree," the big lord continued, as if Duncan'd never spoken, "Hangingtree, Oldtree...well, it doesn't have to be a tree, but...give yourself a better name, boy...till you make one for yourself, that is..." With a smirk and a shrug, the lord moved on with his life, probably forgetting the tall lunk he'd beaten not so handily by the next morning.

"Should've asked him for a place in Storm's End when I had the chance," Duncan chided himself angrily. "He owes me that much..."

"Endless trees and a sopping rain's your fancy then," a softer voice asked behind him. Duncan turned, and saw that the Queen's young Hand had followed him out into the small clearing.

"Lord Astorio," he bowed again, though he wasn't even sure whether this man was a Lord, or Magister, or merchant, however they addressed rich people like him out in Essos. "I was just..."

"No, it won't do," the tan man said, eyes drifting as if he were talking to himself, rather than Duncan. "Prince Aemon's to sail to Lys, you see, so he can't exactly squire for you. Not that any of us expect him to be much of a soldier one day. That is, unless you'd like to spend the next ten years or so out in Essos? But you don't seem the type, do you, Ser Duncan of Flea Bottom?"

"Essos? Lys?" What was the man talking about? "Wait, squire for me?" A prince, was that what he'd suggested, teasing him with the prospect?

"Lys," Astorio agreed dreamily. He pointed towards a distant corner of the camp, filled with unfamiliar banners and sigils. Foreign ones, Duncan could guess, with strange colors and unrecognizable shapes. "Prince Aemon's to marry Princess Drazenka Rogare, you see? The Queen can't let too many generations of the Lysene crown pass before getting some dragonsblood back on her old throne, you understand me?" He winked, and Duncan thought that the man sounded like he was talking through him, rather than at him. Nor did thin foreign man care. "Oh, it's not announced yet, but don't worry about keeping quiet, all the realm will know by tonight's feast...you're dining with us, aren't you?"

"With...with..."

"Oh, right. Yes, I'm afraid Prince Baelor insists upon it. He'd insist on being your squire too, I'd venture, if Lord Lyonel weren't obliged with the boy's upbringing already. What did you think of Her Grace, Ser Duncan?"

"The Queen?" He looked around nervously. Was this some sort of trap? Did they want to punish him, for giving a great lord too hard a joust in the first round? "She was very, um, royal, Lord Maegyr..."

Beautiful, he almost said. Was it proper to tell the Queen's lover of her beauty?

"I'll have to apologize for her," the man continued on, barely heeding his reply. "She's not herself these days, it's been a difficult few turns of the moon for her..."

"Oh." Duncan remembered. He'd heard on the ride to Ashford how the Queen ordered her own son's execution, before departing the capital for Ashford. Treason was treason, but kinslaying was still kinslaying too. "Prince..."

"Do you plan on getting married one day," Astorio interrupted, and Duncan was thankful that he did, for once, before he accidentally said something impolitic about the recent royal kinslaying.

"I don't know, my lord..."

"I'd advise you to treat her well. Our Queen doesn't like it when she hears of her subjects mistreating their fairer companions..." The man's tender fingers, almost womanly, tugged at his elbow. "Come take a walk with me, Ser Duncan."

As if they weren't walking already. They walked more, and he observed that the Queen's Hand and lover (?) was leading him into a quiet part of the woods away from the meadow, and all the rest of the gathered lords. For awhile, neither one of them talked, because Duncan didn't know what to say to such a man he'd never encountered the likes of before, and Astorio Maegyr...well, he certainly could not glimpse into that man's mind, a complex one like he'd never encountered. Then, the lord, who Duncan thought wasn't that much older than himself actually, he just spoke like a man much older, spoke as if there had been no pause at all.

"Lord Lyonel's a good man, a loyal man," he added, "he'll be more useful to Her Grace than most great lords...you don't need me to tell you what an honor it is to his house to be charged with the upkeep of the Crown Prince..."

"I..."

"He's also the kind of man to take umbrage if we don't betroth Prince Baelor to his house. Of course, the problem is that he doesn't actually have a wife yet, much less a daughter. But try explaining something like that to him..." Astorio shook his head.

"I see..."

"Course it makes it worse it's the Tyrells. The young prince can be eccentric in his choices...they all say Lady Mariah's the prettiest one, and I personally think Willia's the cleverer one, but Prince Baelor's taken a liking to Lady Dalla, after all, and if it's all the same politically..." He deigned to look at Duncan, only now noticing his sheer confusion, as if the man was speaking a different language altogether. "Right, it hasn't been announced yet. It will be at tonight's feast, Prince Baelor and Dalia Tyrell's betrothal..."

"Oh..." That was big news, Duncan supposed. He'd care more, if he knew who any of these Tyrells were.

"Which makes Dorne nervous. Which it should, the Crown leaving its heir in the hands of the Baratheons and Tyrells. Which it shouldn't, Her Grace means no ill will against her longtime friends in Sunspear, but one can't leave two such powerful houses out of the fold forever, can we..."

"I suppose not..."

"Prince Obaro understands this, of course, he's a reasonable man. But he can be...Dornish, at times. And all it takes is whispers from the wrong person to leave even the most reasonable of lords with the wrong idea..."

"The wrong person?" More names he's never heard of. He'd never met a Dornishman in his life, Duncan thought. Except in the harbors back when he was a child, but foreigners, Dornish, how was he to tell which was which?

"I'm arranging a place for you in Starpike," Astorio decided, having stopped walking. He'd decided a long time before this, Duncan realized, perhaps even when he'd yet to even mount his horse against the Laughing Storm. His goal was fulfilled, he'd have a place, a hearth, steady meals, yet Duncan wondered why he did not feel as assured as he should have.

"Starpike?" He'd heard of the castle. Where, or whom, or why, Duncan could not begin to fathom.

"In the marches," Astorio agreed. "House Peake."

Somehow the Queen's Hand had predicted the entirety of his confusion. "Lord Gormon?" That name Duncan knew. The man belonged to the Queen's Small Council, though he wasn't sure whether he was here at the tourney. Not that he knew what, or who exactly, to look for, this new liege of his.

"The Queen's loyal Master of Whispers, correct. A most...worrisome man, all the Peakes, really, they've been...interesting for the Crown to work with since Lord Unwin, to say the least. The security of Her Grace's three southern kingdoms are paramount, yet sadly a most powerful house whose loyalties are...not at all clear...sits at the center of all three."

"The Queen's Master of Whispers," Duncan muttered, realization, then horror, dawning upon him. "You want me to _spy_ on the Queen's Master of Whispers?"

He'd come to Ashford for a job, not to lose his head finding one. Yet, how could he say no to the Queen's Hand...essentially the Queen herself?

"Very proud Master of Whispers," Astorio said, walking again, "not likely at all to suspect a simple hedge knight, not at all. Of course, none of this was arranged by myself, you see, you've only met me sparingly that one time when you paid your respects to the Queen. An intermediary will be arranged, and..."

Somewhere in the back of his head, Duncan of Flea Bottom wondered if he might have been better off if Lyonel Baratheon's lance took off his head instead...

* * *

**The Citadel**

...while both the Good Queen Rhaenyra and the Great Queen Aerea received acclaim and love of the Smallfolk, few monarchs were as beloved amongst all the masses and nobles along as the man who came after them, King Baelor I Targaryen, 'the Andal'.

Clearly, a not so insignificant amount of the sentiment can be attributed to the inherent bigotry of the Westerosi masses highborn and low. Finally, after two hundred years of rule and thirteen monarchs of varying qualities preceding him, King Baelor ascended to the throne first and foremost as a man, and secondly, with his dark brown hair and closely cut beard accentuating what was described generally as very handsome features, most of Westeros saw upon the Iron Throne not a foreign conqueror, but a man whose appearance and culture matched that of the realm he ruled. King Baelor looked to his people not a descendant of dragons, but as a native knight and lord who'd earned his way to the crown.

A man duly religious and faithful, if not overly so, the young Prince courted and married Dalla Tyrell, daughter of Lord Paramount Leo, brother of Lord Paramount Marvyn, thus cementing relations with, if not the most respected House of Andal blood, certainly one of their most stereotypical and generic ones. That the King remained faithful and entirely devoted to his wife even as the young Queen had become sickly and nearly infirm and cripple from disease and childbirth by the time of their coronation in 219 AC only further endeared him to all but the most cynical of his subjects.

Blessed with the solid foundations set in place with Dorne established by his two predecessors, King Baelor did little to antagonize the kingdom, continuing to encourage the colonization of the Rhoyne by its second and third sons, etc., and blessing the marriage of Trystos Martell, a distance cousin of Prince Maron's, and Princess Rhaenys of Volantis, daughter of Queen Oreana Targaryen and King Prestyr Maegyr, thus consolidating the rule of all the Rhoyne from the restored city of Ny Sar to Volantis harbor under a crown whose blood would one day run Volantene, Valryian, and Rhoynar (also Baratheon, though the latter name mattered little in Essos).

While his mother had been pulled somewhat against her will into the dramas of the burgeoning Targaryen empire to the east, the good king Baelor was happy to let events play out naturally in Essos, with as little interference from the Iron Throne as possible. The great series riverforts constructed by Queen Aerea, literally built on top of the River Rhoyne at various points, helped form a most effective defense against the pillaging yet superstitious Dothraki hordes. When the city of Qohor was sacked by the hordes in 221 AC, the surviving Magister and Priest Jariqo Qovorik reached an agreement almost entirely independent of the Iron Throne. In exchange for protection from the Dothraki and a treaty that the growing Dornish colonies would reach no further than the site of the ancient city of Ar Noy along the Qhoyne, the free city would bend the knee to the joint monarchs Oreana and Prestyr, their added fealty to King's Landing almost an afterthought. (Indeed a joint Volantene and Qohorik campaign, led by the monarchs and magisters alike with certain standout Westerosi warriors as Ser Quentyn Ball and Black Tom Heddle, managed to drive a succeeding Dothraki campaign 'back halfway to Vaes Dothrak').

Thus House Targaryen's empire reached, in name, the shores of the Shivering Sea (the limits of Qohor's traditionally claimed lands) four years into Baelor's reign, with nary a breath of effort put in by king and council alike. Indeed, it is said that the king barely reacted when hearing of the treaty while he competed gamely in a tourney at Castamere, yet another occasion when Baelor, never the best of warriors, found himself unhorsed within three or four rounds of the competition (that the King lost regularly in every tourney he attended, yet valiantly never failed to compete in the next one, added to the humble yet esteemed reputation built by the man many called Baelor 'the Beloved'.)

Indeed, the eyes of the Iron Throne returned almost solely westwards (which is not to imply imperial era monarchs Viserys II, Rhaenyra II, or Aerea I ignored Westeros altogether). Lord Maegyr resigned his position as Hand less than two years into Baelor's reign to return to Volantis to help his brother rule, but most knew that the king had slowly pushed him out, not out of any resentment for having lain with his mother out of wedlock, but because King Baelor wanted a Westerosi Hand leading a Westerosi Council. Indeed, throughout most of his reign, the King's Small Council was known as Knights' Council, each man besides the Grandmaester an acclaimed warrior of renown from war fought on the battlefield or tourney grounds.

(It was evident that Lord Maegyr never held any resentment towards King Baelor. Upon returning east, he immediately helped his brother and Queen Oreana negotiate the annexation treaties with Qohor, and led many of the campaigns against the Dothroki hordes. The former Hand also returned to King's Landing once every two or three years to visit old friends, including the King himself, who would reminisce battles and memories of old with his mother's lover).

There was some wisdom to Baelor's sentiments. Even if Aerea I never neglected Westeros, even if most of the lords respected and many were friendly with Lord Astorio, the yearning to be ruled by and rule beside 'one of themselves' may well transcend the most rational of minds. Perhaps the new King, who indeed, was 'one of them' in looks and attitude, understood this at a level he could never articulate even in his own mind, who yet also understood that the eastern reaches of his empire possessed the talent and ability, and perhaps a similar yearning, to rule and carry about on their own. Whether or not this was King Baelor's intent, the fact was that the first half of Baelor I's reign saw peace and prosperity thrive, as most of the years under his two predecessors.

One exception was the Blackwood Rebellion of 228 AC, a stern test of the King's intra-Westerosi set of alliances built through the first decade of his reign. For his efforts servicing Queen Rhaenyra I on the battlefield and in the bedchambers, Benjicot Blackwood had been awarded the ancient castle of Harrenhal after Larys Strong, the last of his line, fled to Volantis with Aegon II. Indeed, King Baelor himself was Lord Benjicot's great grandson through the line of Dyana Blackwood, Aerea I's mother and the last of Rhaenyra I's children with her last husband. But the Blackwood name and legacy passed through Barba Blackwood, the Lord Consort's second child, who ruled humbly the traditional lands of her family, while leaving Harrenhal and its domains to its castellans through the years until her death in 198 AC.

Her grandson Tommen held grander ambitions. A cousin to Queen Aerea, whose late father Bennard Blackwood had been the one to finish the coup against Jaehaerys the Wicked, the new Lord of Raventree Hall and Harrenhal arrived at the capital eager use his blood relations to dispossess his family's ancient rivals of ever more lands. Recognizing that the Brackens had been most loyal subjects since the Dance, Aerea granted her distant cousin only a line of rocky and uninhabitable hills and ridgelines ending at the two summits known as the Mother's Teats, thus avoiding the embarrassment of refusing her kinsman's request, while at the same time doing as little damage as possible to their rival Brackens. (Indeed, it was said that Queen Aerea held great respect for Lady Barba Bracken. It was also said that Terrence Toyne, her Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, had taken Barba's sister Bethany as his lover, with the Queen's full knowledge and consent, so it was very possible that the Aerea cared more for the Brackens than her own distant kin at this time).

Lord Tommen left the capital disappointed yet eager to turn what little lemons he'd been awarded into lemonade. Within a decade he'd built walls and forts along the mountainous lands granted him, terrain once thought useless suddenly turned into weapons against the family which once possessed it. Tommen Blackwood died in 212 AC, and his son and successor seemed, at first glance, not as ambitious as his father. Having served capably in Barbrey's War, Viserys Blackwood returned home to Westeros and duly received an appointment as Master of War, a chair he held through six years of peace.

In early 219 AC, hearing that the Queen was ailing, Lord Otho Bracken launched an invasion of Blackwood lands, taking the Mother's Teats after six hard days of fighting. The 'War for the Teats' was short lived, with Lord Brynden Tully immediately sending a relieving force from Riverrun, while Lord Viserys led an army from the capital with the blessing of the Crown. Stone Hedge was taken, and Otho was sent to King's Landing, where he was executed alongside Gormun Peake in one of Queen Aerea's last public appearances.

Viserys then petitioned that all of the Bracken lands, including Stone Hedge, be awarded to the Blackwoods. The request was denied, as were further requests for lands leaving out the castle. By the time his last denial returned to him, Baelor Targaryen had already been crowned king, denying Viserys's last hope that a change in crown might affect his position.

Angered, he took consolation in forcibly marrying Brynda Rivers, the beautiful bastard daughter of Lady Bethany Bracken (likely by Lord Commander Terrence Toyne of the Kingsguard). The problem was that during the occupation of Stone Hedge, the young Lord of Riverrun had also fallen in love with the girl. Already betrothed to a Piper and unable to marry his illicit love, Lord Brynden nevertheless invited the young couple to dine at Riverrun. Apparently Lady Brynda, more enamored by the younger and more handsome Lord Paramount, declined to return to Raventree Hall, leaving a fuming Viserys Blackwood pointedly swearing vengeance.

Rather than declaring any immediate rebellion, Viserys continued the fortifications of all his lands through the coming years, building up Harrenhal while simultaneously forcing many of its residents westwards towards traditional Blackwood lands (threatening, through implication, both Riverrun and Stone Hedge). Ravens were sent to merchants in Qohor, buying from the new subjects of the Crown captured Dothraki by the hundreds to 'settle' by Harrenhal, where they were gelded and forced to build up its towers and ancient fortifications.

Clearly the Lord of Raventree Hall was gearing up for a power move, yet he'd broken no actual laws (the Dothraki were given small amounts of coin for their work, so that the crown could not accuse Viserys of utilizing slave labor). Then came the taking of Darry, when Viserys's men attacked Lord Janos and forced him to renounce his ancestral claim for Viserys, because of a shared ancestor five generations prior.

It is obvious, with or without hindsight, that the erstwhile lord was itching to fight a battle he could not win. But it should not be forgotten the Targaryen blood within all the descendants of Bloody Ben Blackwood, leading them towards the precipice of madness, and in Viserys's case, a belief that his shared blood with King Baelor would prevent the crown from acting against the house which had supported the Realm's Delight many generations prior. Indeed, those who knew Viserys near the time of his rebellion remembered a man for whom reason had deserted, who grumbled night and day about the perceived slights against him by his liege lord and king.

Yet armies were once again sent to the Riverlands in 225 AC. The first host, led by Lord Robert Reyne, was unexpectedly ambushed and destroyed a day's ride south of Harrenhal by an army led by Amos Piper; the Lord of Pinkmaiden, furious at the dishonoring of his daughter by Riverrun, had apparently joined the rebellion, and while the weight of most of the realm was still stacked against them, the rebels invariably held a critical defensive line through the center of the kingdom, from Darry on the Trident through Harrenhal and deep past the west banks of the God's Eye, allowing Lord Viserys to shift his armies back and forth to meet each threat as they came.

Playing right into the hands of his enemies, Brynden Tully launched a foolhardy assault on Blackwood lands from the west and found himself repelled twice trying to take the Teats' Ridge, a line of fortified hills running north from the famed twin summits. An attack from Stone Hedge led by Borros Bracken, happy to be on the side of the crown for once, failed as well, and it seemed Viserys's strategy of repelling all his enemies within his concentrated supply lines was paying off after all.

Indeed, what should have been a small and relatively inconsequential rebellion forced King Baelor to call out for help from all remaining continental kingdoms, and even as he marched from King's Landing with ten thousand men, mostly gathered from the Stormlands and the Reach, there remained the dilemma of which rebel stronghold to besiege first.

Ultimately, the Lord Hand Lyonel Baratheon opted to veer west of the God's Eye, skipping Pinkmaiden to march first to Riverrun, so as to augment their army with the weakened Tully numbers. From the west, Gerold Lannister and Roger Reyne, newly made Lord of Castamere and Lannisport after his father's death, put aside their grudges to mount an assault on Pinkmaiden. Ravens were sent north and to the Vale, but before either kingdom could answer, word came from Harrenhal that Ser Walden Whent, a knight in the service of Lord Viserys at the castle, repented of his treason and swore allegiance to the crown, attacking and killing the rebellious knights from within the castle. Furious, Viserys nevertheless remained at Raventree Hall, fearing the loss of his ancestral home were he to move to retake his second castle with a siege he'd never envisioned, but he was nevertheless forced to march upon hearing that an army from the Vale had descended onto the Trident to threaten Castle Darry.

Lord Viserys never made it so far. The crown's banners caught up with him at Lord Harroway's Town, where Lyonel Baratheon led a late evening charge destroying the Blackwoods' right flank, pinning the rebels against the river by sundown. Viserys tried salvaging what he could out of a losing situation, challenging his enemies to trial by combat, which he duly lost after being wounded and knocked down by the king's good friend, Ser Duncan 'the Tall'. The giant knight spared his life even though Viserys cried out for death rather than the embarrassment of defeat. Refusing also an exile to the Wall so as to force the King into kinslaying, Baelor wisely had his prisoner bound and sent to Qohor, then the furthest reaches of the Baelorian Empire, where the former lord and rebel remained an unwilling ward for the rest of his life, under the same merchants he'd dealt with prior to his rebellion.

The Blackwoods were allowed to keep their ancestral home but stripped of Harrenhal, which was duly awarded to Walden Whent for his loyalty and role in significantly shortening the war. The King wished to reward his friend and champion with a lordship, but considering the man's extremely low birth, could only realistically elevate him to a noble status, conferring upon him a title as Castellan of Harrenhal, for the time being, the good knight taking the family name Harrowyn for his role at the victory at Lord Harroway's Town...

* * *

**Astorio Maegyr - 237 AC**

He may have been biased, but the Red Keep Astorio looked a much more a drab castle than the one he remembered under his Aerea. There were fewer pretty ladies wafting about, for one. Aerea loved her ladies, clad in every color of dress made of fabrics and exotic dyes from as far as Qarth. Astorio never lusted for them, not overly so at the very least, but that didn't stop him from admiring the sheer aestheticness of it all. There weren't as many ladies in court these days. Queen Dalla had few friends, and what ladies in waiting there were remained mostly in Maegor's Holdfast with their sickly Queen.

No, the court of Baelor was rather boring for him, all knights with all balls and little subtlety strutting around with equal amounts of pride and confidence, whether or not they'd gone to war or not. The one knight next to him definitely wasn't much for subtlety, but Astorio liked him anyway, always did, and he pitied the man, he genuinely did.

"...she has her silver haired heir. Prince Viserys is quite healthy, all the court says...isn't that how you did it, Prince Astorio? You shared Queen Aerea's bed, except for the moons when she had to conceive with her husband...until she had Prince Aemon..."

"Yes," Astorio reminisced fondly. "The day she told me she thought she was barren...that was the happiest day of my life, imagine that." They both chuckled at the perverseness of it all. "But my Aerea was the Queen when we were together. Not merely an heir, with a husband who very much desires her."

"I know." Duncan Harrowyn hung his head in disappointment. The man knew the impossibility of his situation, what he wanted, what the Princess Rhaenyra wanted too, in truth. That did not hold his heart back from wanting it regardless, and Astorio could sympathize, had someone tried to tell him he couldn't be with Aerea anymore, especially when he'd been younger, who knows what he could have been capable of? Obviously this was why the King called him away from his rather comfortable confines in the royal palace of his brother's in Volantis, because there was no person alive, perhaps, who could understand Ser Duncan's predicament, not that the knight was much of a young man anymore.

"She's the most beautiful woman in the world," Astorio said, wrapping a sympathetic arm around him, "you're not the only who one thinks that. Of her, or any other woman a man would call his. She'll rule one day, be remembered as a great and beloved Queen. You had her heart once. You'll still have her heart, I think, long after that, after you're but dust and memories in this world. Take comfort in that, Dunk, that's all you can really do."

The man who once helped a great woman rule an empire wondered to himself what was worse. To love a woman who was dead, whose face he'd never see again, whose touch he'd never feel again, whose voice he'd never hear again...or to live in the same world as the woman he loved...like Duncan did, yet be cast worlds away, all the while knowing she loved him, yet forbidden from seeing her. Of course, Rhaenyra would hopefully rule one day, and if the old lunky knight still breathed the day they put a crown on her head, she could always call back her old lover, her first lover, into her chambers in the holdfast.

Astorio hoped not. She was a beauty, and she had a good heart, but a future Queen Rhaenyra III Targaryen was not the kind to be able to manage seven kingdoms, a lover, and a husband and consort who assuredly did not prefer sharing his wife with another man. The gods bless Baelor's reign, that it'd be a long one, and Astorio doubted he'd be alive by its end, so he could only hope the Princess could find someone who could help her rule, the gods knew she'd need it more than Aerea ever did.

"I think about when the idea repulsed me," Duncan said, laying his giant head inside his giant hands, "when you talked me into...," he coughed, "seeing her. She was such a sweet girl...she deserved better then...now, too." The two sat together in a small corner of the Throne Room. Baelor and most of his favorites were out in the Kingswood, hunts which took the better of two or three weeks at a time. Astorio was pretty sure the king called the hunt to avoid his daughter's lover, and the very awkward conversation so as to ensure that the two never spent a night together again.

"His Grace never expected for her to fall in love. Or you, for the matter. You were a married man, after all."

"I hate him," Duncan spat, staring daggers at the empty throne. "I hate you too. I had a wife I loved. After her, I could never look at Alerys the same way, not without thinking about her. She'd lost me, she knew it too, and I'd lost her, because of Rhaenyra. Now she's dead, and the woman I sacrificed my marriage for..."

"You're right. It's not fair. It wasn't fair for the King to ask it of you then. It wasn't fair for me to have done his bidding, rather than fight what was obviously a, a...a horrible idea...you never would have done it, if we didn't push you..."

Duncan snapped and yelled. "I never would have done it if I hadn't been practically been ordered by my king to fuck his daughter! I was married to a woman I loved, who'd given me two children already, damn it!"

It had been obvious always to all the court how the young Princess absolutely adored her father's favorite knight years before she understood what lust meant, perhaps precisely from observing how much her father adored the tall, handsome, and valiant knight. King Baelor loved his daughter, his heir, and when he clearly discerned how much she'd eventually desired the man in a less than chaste manner. It was perverse for sure, but far from the most perverse act from a Targaryen. Besides, the King had merely the best intentions, he'd only wanted to make his daughter happy.

"I'd be despoiling her," Dunk the Lunk had protested at the time. "Like you said, I can't ever marry her...not that I'd want to..."

"So," Astorio questioned him sharply. "She's not just any Princess, she's the heir to the seven kingdoms. No Queen Regnant's been a maiden on the day of their wedding, no need to set a precedent we all know full well no damned king's going to follow afterwards. This is what gives them their power, Dunk! That she can act the same way as a man, how else will the lords accept her succession, knowing damned well she's got three able bodied brothers lurking somewhere out there..."

He'd been rambling, he'd known it then too. It was all shit, his persuasion and corruption of Dunk the Lunk. But long gone were the days when he advised the Iron Throne. This day, or the day he pushed Dunk the Lunk to deflower the fair Princess Rhaenyra, he obeyed the orders of his king, no more, no less.

"I'm sorry," the old knight breathed beside him. "It's not my place, I know that. Give me the fancy name, a castle to caretake, end of the day I'm still just Duncan from Flea Bottom. I've no right...but...she needs me, Astorio, when I saw her the day before, when we..."

Discretion took over, yet his intense sad eyes pleaded with him, imploring Astorio to use his great mind to think of one last ploy, unable to accept that neither one of them had a choice in the matter.

"That's how they get you, isn't it," Astorio said, laughing gently. "Everyone knew about Queen Aerea, what had happened with her, and the wicked king. Yet, that day I first saw her on the throne, me a mere boy, she, a Queen secure on her throne for years...yet, in that moment, I thought, look at her. So beautiful, but her eyes, so sad, so...needful...she needed me, I told myself. That first night we spent together, I swore to her not just my fealty, my services, my life, but I swore to her...that I'd protect her. That nothing bad would ever happen to her again, not if I could help it."

He gulped, feeling the his eyes swelling, his chest and throat tightening. There was nothing false in what he was confessing to Duncan now, every word of it the gods' purest truth. Gods, he missed her. Death could not come sooner for him.

"Do you know what she told me, Dunk? She held me, she clutched my hand, pressed her palms to mine, and said to me, 'I know you will. I trust you. I trust my life to you,' the day she'd met me, Dunk! Took me many years to realize it, that no one needed my protection less than my Aerea, no, she would have been great, with or without me. That's their skill, making you think they need you. There's something about a woman, Dunk, when she's so vulnerable, that makes her twice as beautiful...trust me, there's _nothing_ in this world like a woman in need, that can melt the hearts of all but the hardest and cruelest of men. It's our instinct, I think, it's in our blood, bred deeper than our minds and hearts can understand."

Except the beautiful princess Duncan loved was not his Aerea, that was a problem. He did not believe she could sail the roughest winds alone, like his Aerea.

"You're to be a lord, His Grace has told me."

"A Lord," Duncan's eyes flared in surprise. He did not jump for joy, nor did Astorio expect him to. "He's going to give me a castle?"

"Something like that," Astorio replied, wavering his hand apprehensively. "You're to be Lord of Moat Cailin."

Duncan spit out in laughter. The man wasn't an idiot. "He's buying me off...no, he's sending me out to freeze to death! And exiling me...and he won't even say it to my face..."

"You're charged with rebuilding Moat Cailin to its former glory. They'll all remember you for that, for ages to come."

"Former glory," Duncan scoffed. "Before the First Men came, you mean? "Since when had the man become such a cynic?

"Something like that," Astorio admitted. He wished he'd brought wine. For himself, and Dunk. "Think of it as a great honor, Lord Duncan, a most important duty for your king. It's better that way, for all of us."

Days later, the bitter winds stung his face as he clung to the bows of the ship crossing the Narrow Sea. Winter was at least vanished for a few years, Lord Duncan could give thanks on that front at the very least.

He thought about the young and beautiful princess with three younger brothers, who was to succeed to the throne one day, who was far from the Aerea he knew, or the Rhaenyra before her whose renown and reputation he'd known of as a boy. He'd done what he could for her, yet was it enough, he began pondering, then decided it wasn't worth it, because a man could only do so much, before his time had passed.

Somehow, as he surveyed the familiar waves and tides, spying in the distance the islands indicating that the Summer Sea was near, Astorio Maegyr had a feeling this would be his last time sailing adrift the Narrow Sea.

* * *

**Baelor I Targaryen - 236 AC**

The dark, brown eyes of his mother's lover had not lost their unnerving intensity over the years, his pale, grey hair an strange contrast with the color of his skin unchanged. Most men, and women, grew old together with the one they loved. His mother never saw Astorio Maegyr as an old man. Would she have approved, Baelor wondered, if she dropped from the heavens this very moment into the Small Council room, would she recognize the man he'd become?

"Break the betrothal?"

Astorio nodded. "If you want to ensure your daughter succeeds to the throne, then piss Dorne off for the moment, and betroth her to Tianna Lannister. Dorne's too tied in with us anyway, I'll think of something to throw their way..."

'He's a lonely old man,' Baelor thought. 'For all his wisdom, for all the life he's lived, what he would trade, to have grown old together with the woman he loved.'

He prayed to all the Gods he'd be luckier than Astorio in that regard. Dalla's pain hadn't been too bad that morning. The king reminded himself to talk to the servants after this, make sure they broiled for her the pea soup she loved. The hot soup was too much for her stomach, on her bad days, but Baelor hoped that this was not one of them.

"Let me get this straight," Baelor asked. Already his head hurt. He hated politics. Of course that was why he'd been born a king. "Gerold Lannister has given the crown more headaches than any Lannister since, oh, I don't know, Tylin, whatever his name was during the Dance, or Loren, or hell, you know I don't remember any of the history shit..."

"Probably ever," Astorio agreed, his flippant response infuriating.

"And you're suggesting that, in order to preserve Rhaenyra's succession, I wed the son who'd have the strongest claim against her, to the sister of the future Lord of Casterly Rock."

"Yes." He changed his mind. "Well, Jaehaerys would probably make the best king out of all your four children, so...it's a good thing he's the youngest."

"Yes, quite lucky, aren't I?"

Had the man gone insane? Or was this some kind of strange wisdom understood by only people like his mother and Astorio. And Gerold Lannister, for all he knew, the man was plotting to take his throne as they spoke, yet here Astorio was telling him to hand the damned lion that opportunity on a fittingly golden platter. Everything they'd done had been to contain an angrily rising lion in the west, beginning with betrothing Rhaenyra to Gwaine Tarbeck. The heir to his heir was already growing in her belly, giving a second Westerlands house not named Lannister blood upon the vaunted throne.

The man was testing him, Baelor thought, he had to be. Or he was actively sabotaging Rhaenyra, and by extension himself, except no, Astorio was a loyal man, his mother trusted him with all her life and possessions, hadn't he? Did Baelor have a choice not to?

Not at Astorio was wrong, had he the ability, nay freedom, to choose, without sentiment, without emotion, his ideal heir for the throne, as if they hadn't fought the Dance for the right of the firstborn, as if he could pick the child who might be best suited for the throne, yet not invite legions of chaos and war to flood his kingdoms for generations after his death, then yes, Jaehaerys might well be the best candidate. Of course, there might be war anyway, if his only daughter failed as a queen, so there was no winning for him, was there? The Gods had given him one daughter and three sons, determined to seal him in as the next Viserys I.

"Good thing the dragons are long dead, else I'd remembered as a second Viserys the fool."

"Well yes, war's always a possibility, no matter what you do. I'm simply suggesting to you the best way to avoid war, if possible. Of course, it might not be possible, but then you're doomed regardless, anyway."

If was almost as if the man was reading his mind. "You're right about that. If I'm to throw everything away, might as well do it in the most spectacular way possible."

It hurt him. Baelor loved all his children. He loved Rhaenyra, because she'd always be their first, their special girl, the child whose presence in this world truly made him a man. He loved Aegon, who'd become the warrior Baelor could never be, who could beat his father in a practice duel by the age of four and ten. At that same time, Baelor feared him, not because of his strength, but merely who he was...not because he wanted to usurp his sister's inheritance, but merely because of the potential that one day he might wish to. The king cursed his crown, because of how he'd been forced to love his children less for its sake, for a future he wouldn't even be alive for.

"Your Grace," Astorio interrupted, ignoring entirely his tone, "who's the most powerful man in the Westerlands. Would you say it's Gerold Lannister?"

"Well, he wants to be," the king replied, "but Roger Reyne..."

He stopped speaking. Gods, he was slow. His mother never hit him, thank the Gods, but witnessing this exchange wherever she was, Baelor imagined that she'd be sorely tempted.

"So setting Gerold Lannister up as the man with the most to gain with Aegon's claim...ensures that..." The words refused to come out of his mouth, even though he knew them, and Baelor felt like a child before an ornery maester.

"That Roger Reyne and his sons will be Queen Rhaenyra's greatest champion once she ascends the throne, along with the Tarbecks, if only to prevent the Lannisters from reclaiming power in the Westerlands."

He'd be more perturbed by the man's presumptive tone, if it weren't for the value in his counsel, which may very well preserve his dynasty. Baelor wondered who his mother would have been more proud of in this moment, the son she'd loved, because she hadn't a choice, or the man she'd chosen to love. Somehow, he didn't think he wanted to know the answer.

"If she has a daughter, I'd betroth Robbett Reyne to her. A son, one of Roger's daughters. Or that young sister of his, Ellyn, I hear she's growing into quite a beauty..."

He thought of the child who was to be his first grandchild, and another perplexing thought arose in his mind.

"Rhaenyra, she's asking for..." Once again, the king found himself unable to complete his own sentences. They looked at each other, both their expressions pained, because both of them knew how terrible this was, for Rhaenyra, for Duncan. Astorio was fond of him too, but Astorio never saw the man as...well, not quite a father, not quite a brother...but something in between, to be sure. He could have had his way, and kept Dunk tethered to him in the Red Keep, but the man deserved a name, and a place in the world for himself, and his children. So Baelor sent him to Harrenhal and the Whents, yet, he couldn't help but wonder the effect the distance wrought upon their friendship.

"I'll summon him," Astorio spoke in a much more understanding tone than before. "Don't worry about it, Your Grace, he's a reasonable man, I'll take care of it..."

* * *

**The Citadel**

...to say that the second half of Baelor I Targaryen's reign was a tumultuous one would be misleading, as most consider the entirely of king's nearly 34 year reign the apogee of the golden age of the first Targaryen dynasty, beginning with the reign of the Good Queen Rhaenyra II, and ending with the death of Aegon IV 'the Golden'. And while the various small wars which broke out all ultimately saw the triumph of crown over vassal, the king felt the personal toll of leadership far worse in his later years.

The betrothal of Lady Ellyn Reyne to Prince Viserys, firstborn son of the Crown Princess Rhaenyra and himself half a Tarbeck, a rising Westerland house the moment they married into the royal family, in 237 AC was clearly a move made by the crown to counter the rising power and belligerence of Casterly Rock. Lord Gerold made no secret of his dissatisfaction at Reyne dominion over Lannisport, the great city named after his own family. But Gerold 'the Golden' knew that he could not defy the crown and take the city by force, so instead he turned his attentions to the mountains, sending endless petitions to the crown containing arcane legal arguments about why this or that mine out to be handed over to his house from the Reynes.

The King's Council could not refuse every single request if only because of the sheer quantity of messengers who delivered the endless notices from Casterly Rock, and some of Gerold's claims did possess legal merit, particularly regarding the lands transferred to House Reyne in the aftermath of the First Greyjoy Rebellion, for had the Lannisters not fought alongside the crown that war, even if their war efforts did end mostly in failure? (The crafty old lion did not hesitate to take by force certain mines and lands while the crown considered and then later rejected his demands, pleading ignorance or confusion, the latter of which sown by his own hand).

Though a sop was thrown to Casterly Rock with the betrothal of Prince Aegon, Baelor's second born son, to the young Lady Tianna Lannister, daughter of Lord Tywald and eventual heir to the Westerlands for the time being, until her father could conceive a son, it would be years before the five year old girl could marry and consummate the marriage. The situation wasn't perfect, with all parties enduring their simmering grudges, awaiting a favorable opportunity to break the impasse.

Gerold the Golden's opportunity arrived in 243 AC with the death of Lord Brynden Tully, Hand of the King at the time, and the ascension of his son, Edwyn 'the Ambitious'. Upon his arrival to Moat Cailin, Lord Duncan Harrowyn became a subject of the North. Inexperienced at ruling, the common born lord mistakenly sent tithes at the beginning of his rule down to Harrenhal and his old liege lord Walden Whent. The mistakes were fixed, Lord Walden forwarded the gold to its proper destination at Winterfell, and most of lords read bemusedly of the news.

Edwyn Tully, however, twisted the old knight's actions that proof that Moat Cailin actually reported to Harrenhal, thus giving the Riverlands dominion over all the Neck and into the North itself. Strong arming Harrenhal and Osmund, Walden Whent's weak willed son and heir into agreeing, the new Lord of Riverrun marched his armies north to besiege take the northern stronghold he believed his by right. He was not without allies.

At the same time the Tully armies marched north, the banners of the Freys, Brackens, and Blackwoods snuck their way west up the Tumblestone where, joined by Marbrand banners at Ashemark, continued southwest to besiege Castamere just as Gerold Lannister's assaulted the underground fortress from the south. Apparently Casterly Rock and Riverrun had made a covert agreement to support each other's claims towards expansion and aggression, believing that the weight of two kingdoms united may be enough to coerce King's Landing into neutrality.

The Crown's response was fierce and unmistakable: stand down or be considered rebels and traitors. Armies from the south converged north under Tyrell banners, who'd see their blood on the throne regardless of who succeeded King Baelor, as well as the Stormlands, led by the king's newest Hand, Lord Ormund Baratheon (married to a distant Targaryen cousin descended from the line of Prince Aelor Targaryen, second son of Jaehaerys the Wicked.) Nevertheless, the king faced a much harsher test, having to subdue two entire kingdoms rather than one belligerent family this time around.

Unexpected help came from the Vale, where the young Lord Jon Arryn, whom both sides of the war knew little of, and hoped might remain neutral at best, rallied on the side of the crown. Having expected the rough hewn former hedge knight to surrender the castle easily, then hold off a northern onslaught from its walls, Lord Edmyn found himself in the unenviable position of having to conduct a siege against the stubborn old lord, while facing the prospect of being enveloped by armies approaching from the north and south.

Gerold Lannister's position seemed better for the moment. Most of the Westerlands, fearful of the mighty Roger Reyne, a brilliant and ruthless commander, rallied on the side of their traditional lieges, and while Castamere seemed close to falling, the bulk of Gerold's Westerland allies were actually occupied besieging Lannisport. Successful thus far yet frustrated at the slow progress of his war, the ailing old man, eager to see the fruits of his labors before he died, threatened to flood the underground chambers of the castle into submission. Then disaster struck.

Leaving Lannisport with five hundred of his bravest knights, the great Roger Reyne ambushed Casterly Rock itself, previously thought impregnable. But spies had informed Roger 'the Mighty' of the fortress's one weakness, a series of sewage tunnels leading from the rocky shores below. Before Lord Gerold could destroy Castamere, he received ravens that not only did Roger Reyne take Casterly Rock, all his family besides his eldest son Tywald, fighting by his side at Castamere, had been taken hostage, and that both his second son Tion and fourth son Jason had died in the fighting. (Ser Jason's legacy would continue; his wife gave birth eight moons after his death to a daughter named Joanna, who would eventually marry her cousin, the formidable Lord Tywin).

Shocked and broken by the news, Lord Gerold died a ruined man below the walls of Castamere. Hearing of his ally's defeat and faced with the prospect of a lonely annihilation at Moat Cailin, Edwyn Tully considered his options. The Lord of Riverrun sent out ravens seeking terms of surrender, but was ambushed and killed by a band of Crannogmen before his messengers ever reached the Trident.

Both the First War for Moat Cailin and the First War of the Lions ended quickly and brutally for the instigators, with the King and his gathered armies barely having departed the capital, yet poised to dictate the terms of the coming peace. The child lord Hoster Tully, left behind at was allowed to retain his title, though the new Lord Paramount also inherited at earliest age a bitter and lasting hatred of Northmen by the end of the war. Because Tywald Lannister had accompanied his late father into battle, he was duly stripped and disinherited, Casterly Rock passing down his twelve year old daughter Tianna (the same one betrothed to Prince Aegon).

Both great houses retained their positions as Lords Paramount, but for their continued services, the Reynes were awarded nearly all of the mines under House Lannister's domains, and Lord Roger named Warden of the West indefinitely, effectively ruling the kingdom on behalf of his supposed liege lady. The war also saw the arrival of Jon Arryn into the Crown's fold, as the future Hand would serve in King's Landing in one capacity or another for many decades to come, eventually betrothing his nephew Elbert to the Crown Princess's second child Aerea, securing for the future Rhaenyra III Targaryen the loyalty and services of the Vale for the duration of her reign...

* * *

...though encouraged by some to remarry, King Baelor was steadfast in his refusal, both out of devotion to his beloved late wife, as well as awareness that any further union might further complicate what already loomed an uneasy succession ahead. Certainly, the king was never his cheerful self after Queen Dalla's death in 246 AC, and his demeanor grew worse after Daemon's Rebellion in 250 AC, when the king begrudgingly followed in the footsteps of his mother in becoming a kinslayer.

Daemon 'the Arrogant' (not to be confused with the brief Daemon I of the Iron Throne), was a cousin of the king through his uncle Aegon, briefly the self proclaimed King of the Stepstones. His son eldest Aerys had long given up the title after Barbrey's War, settling in the new city of Ny Sar the last years before passing. His second son Daemon, born in 188 AC and nine years older than King Baelor, began his career in the court of Baela the Cruel, acting as the Lysene Queen's enforcer and personally responsible for the tortures and assassinations of many of the Queen's enemies, real or imagined. (The young Daemon was also rumored to be the queen's lover, and father to her last bastard daughter).

Upon Baela's death, Daemon wisely fled a city which despised him, making his way as far as Slaver's Bay as a sellsword (having supported Baela of Lys, he was unwelcome in Volantene realms as well), before briefly turning up in Westeros in 221 AC early in King Baelor's reign, where the fierce warrior unhorsed Duncan the Tall to win the Tourney of Oldtown. As calculating as he was passionate, the erstwhile prince behaved tamely, duly crowning Queen Dalla as the Queen of Love and Beauty, and impressing his cousin the king enough for Baelor to almost offer him a place in court, before being talked out of it by his advisers.

Instead, Daemon followed the path of many a second son and landless and restless man of his era, traveling to the effective "second wall" along the Dothraki frontier, where men were allowed to marry and have children, knowing that most of them were about to be cut down by the hordes sooner or later. An expert horseman himself, Daemon's reputation as a butcher of horselords led his name and repute to be feared as far as Vaes Dothrak, and despite their lifelong enmity, Queen Oreana, now monarch of Volantis and Qohor, was forced to acknowledge his contributions, appointing him the Commander of her Qohorik legions.

Preceded by her husband in death, Queen Oreana passed in 249 AC at the ripe old age of 70, choosing to pass her twin crowns down to her two eldest children: to her son Bartimos Maegyr, the Qohorik Crown, and her daughter Rhaenys, Volantis. As the eldest child however, King Bartimos proved furious at his inheritance, believing that the crown jewel that was Volantis should have been his by right, denied only because Rhaenys had been their mother's favorite. Luckily, with a powerful, ruthless, and morally bankrupt commander under his control now, Bartimos and Daemon chose to flirt with the fires of conspiracy.

The occasion came with the wedding of King Baelor's granddaughter Alysanne (daughter of Prince Jaehaerys) to Queen Rhaenys's son, Doren, of the Houses Targaryen, Maegyr, and Martell, freshly heir to Volantis. Queen Rhaenys had no choice but to invite her brother, but little treachery was expected during the wedding, which went along merrily, the feast and festivities enjoyed by all. By dawn, Daemon's army had taken the palace. By midafternoon, the city, though an alert servant luckily alarmed the Prince Doren, who had his guards carry his entirely drunken family out of the palace before Daemon and Bartimos could visit more harm upon them.

Bartimos duly crowned himself King of Volantis, and 'generously' offered his Qohorik crown to Daemon's son Viserion, a brute more vicious than his father while lacking his brains; it was understood that Daemon would rule the city while he lived, and Bartimos on behalf of his son afterwards. Meanwhile, a ship carrying Prince Doren inevitably arrived in King's Landing several moons later, pleading the Crown's help.

Faced with the rebellion of yet another two Kingdoms, by his own kin no less, King Baelor had little choice but to intervene, though he believed the realm had little appetite in shedding blood for what amounted to a Targaryen family spat on distant shores. Dorne was at least eager for war, the rebels having disinherited the Martells from their rightful rule over the Rhoyne valley, but in reality, the seven continental kingdoms possessed more appetite for bloodshed than the king would have expected.

Having seen their blood raised for war yet disappointed six years prior, Ormund Baratheon and many of his marcher knights, including a very young Barristan Selmy, were eager to prove their worth this time around. Roger Reyne duly sent the vast Reyne fleet out of Lannisport, while Hoster Tully, eager to prove his family's loyalty after their last rebellion, obligingly volunteered all the men the Riverlands could send. Not to be outdone, his bitter rival Edwyle Stark ordered eight thousand Northmen to sail from White Harbor, included the aged Duncan Harrowyn along with Rickard Stark, Lord Edwyle's son and heir.

Along with another ten thousand fighting men from Lys offered up by Queen Drazenka Rogare, King Bartimos suddenly faced the prospect of facing a grand army of over fifty thousand men, one of the largest forces ever mustered since the Field of Fire, and while the usurper had only brave words to offer when preparing the defenses of the city, it was said that his nerve gave way upon seeing the endless array of galleys prepared to fight him. King Bartimos snuck out of Volantis that same night, and the city was retaken as easily as it'd been stolen.

The campaign of the Rhoyne which followed was conducted as classically as any in history, against albeit an entirely outmatched opponent. Furious at his partner's cowardice, Daemon practically ordered King Bartimos back into the field, where his remaining forces were routed at the Battle of Sar Mell, and the usurper ridden down and killed by a band of Rickark Stark's wildmen. Determined not to fight a defensive war, Daemon counterattacked with all his might against a Westerosi army which should have been dwindled by a lengthy siege, but remained fresh and eager for war upon the open terrain which favored their superior numbers.

The Battle of Selhorys saw twenty thousand rebel soldiers and mercenaries facing up against armies led by Ormund Baratheon and Jon Arryn, who had strayed too far north and found themselves separated from the rest of Baelor's grand army. For once the rebels had a numerical advantage. Faced with perhaps his only opportunity to win the war, Prince Daemon led a furious cavalry charge against the Westerosi center. His men, accustomed to the irregular fighting on the plains, could not make progress however against the disciplined Knights of the Vale.

Seeing that his battle plan had fallen into dire straights, his numbers dwindling from repeated and unending volleys of enemy arrows from their rear, and a countercharge against his left threatening to pin him against the river, Daemon raised his sword and challenged his enemies to single combat. The young Barristan Selmy answered, and dueled the mighty but aging warrior valiantly, dealing him bruising cuts on his side and thighs. Unable to ride and fight at the same time, Daemon retreated, and the rest of his army crumbled under the weight of defeat.

With one last trick up his sleeve, calling for reinforcements from Qohor, Prince Daemon mounted a desperate defense near Chroyane, hoping to lure his enemies into a dangerous crossing of the Rhoyne. King Baelor took the bait, and a furious fight for the beachhead ensued for nearly an hour, before five thousand Dornishmen, who'd crossed further down river, broke the assault and forced the rebels to continue their retreat.

Arriving at the city of Ny Sar, Daemon demanded entrance atop the walls where he intended to make his last stand. The Dornish stewards to the castle refused, so the Prince positioned what remained of his army on Hangman's Hill outside the city, hoping to go out in a blaze of glory. It was not to be; a nighttime raid led by Ser Gwaine Tarbeck, the young husband to the future Rhaenyra III Targaryen, captured the arch rebel and his son in their sleep, bringing them before their king in chains.

As much as he would have liked to avoid kinslaying, King Baelor ultimately had little choice. The lords demanded justice for men who'd not only committed treason, but had violated guest rights, and would have likely shed further royal blood had Rhaenys Maegyr and her family not escaped in time (they'd further insulted the King's own family by executing their coup during the wedding of his granddaughter). The Wall was not an option for vile men of such ilk, so father and son were beheaded together, Volantis returned to Queen Rhaenys, and the late Queen Oreana's third and last child Alyssa given the throne of Qohor, where she duly married a nobleman native to the city and converted to the worship of the Black Goat.

All in all, it was a 'grand and fine old war', as Lord Ormund recalled fondly of Daemon's rebellion late in his life. For once, all the greatest knights and warriors of Westeros gathered not to fight each other, but a common and despised foreign enemy. Heroes young and old were discovered, and hundreds of knighthoods conferred. Touching scenes the like of King Baelor knighting the brave young Barristan the Bold on the field of battle, who then immediately knighted the King's grandson Prince Viserys in turn, were transformed into song, and the great alliance even saw strange scenes such as the once and future archenemies Rickard Stark handing the young Hoster Tully his first mug of ale before their men, who would be amassed against each other swords drawn within a decade.

The war was thoroughly enjoyed by all, except the dead, and the King, who bore its burdens unhappily to the end. Convinced that he was cursed for the sin of kinslaying, Baelor's fears may have proven true two years later, the occasion yet another wedding.

This happy night in the Red Keep belonged to Prince Viserys and Ellyn Reyne, the latter said to be a thoroughly ambitious and capable woman many believed would eventually serve as the real power behind the throne, once her silver haired husband finally inherited it all one day. Tensions with Crown Princess Rhaenyra's brothers notwithstanding, emissaries from near and far came to pay tribute to a royal family beloved by all, from its good and noble King, to his unnaturally beautiful heir, the proud mother's purple eyes shining against her dark brown hair, almost black in color that dreamy and starlit night, and her handsome and precocious son, whose classic Targaryen looks promised to return the aura of Old Valyria back to the Iron Throne one day.

It was not to be.

Among those who came to pay tribute included a band of merchants from far Lorath. Unbeknownst to them, a great plague had broken out in the city not long after they'd departed, and while none who attended the wedding exhibited any signs of symptoms, several of their crew were already ill that night when they partook in the taverns and brothels of Flea Bottom.

Crown Princess Rhaenyra sailed to Gulldown with her daughter Aerea the morning after what she'd described as the happiest day of her life, eager to negotiate with her friend Jon Arryn the next marriage of her beloved brood. Little did she know that by the time of her return, she would be a widowed Queen Regnant of the Westerosi Empire, who'd just lost a father, a husband, and a firstborn son to the deadly Lorathi Plague...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Baelor I Targaryen (197 AC - 253 AC)  
> Reign (219 AC - 253 AC)
> 
> Also called:  
> Baelor 'the Beloved'  
> Baelor 'the Ordinary'  
> Baelor 'the Great'
> 
> Hands of the King  
> Astorio Maegyr (219 AC - 220 AC)  
> Lyonel Baratheon (220 AC - 236 AC)  
> Brynden Tully (236 AC - 243 AC)  
> Ormund Baratheon (243 AC - 251 AC)  
> Roger Reyne (251 AC - 253 AC)
> 
> Issue:  
> Rhaenyra Targaryen (b. 214 AC) - succeeded to Iron Throne  
> Aegon Targaryen (b. 218 AC) - killed in a duel masterminded by Roger Reyne  
> Aenys Targaryen (b. 219 AC) - briefly raised as a pretender  
> Jaehaerys Targaryen (b. 222 AC) - long career serving Iron Throne in various roles


	9. Rhaenyra III Targaryen - "The Beautiful"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was suggested that I add the children of each sovereign in question to reduce confusion, a very sensible suggestion considering the vast quantities of non-canonical Targaryens I'm adding by the half dozens.
> 
> I've gone back and added a list of issue in the end notes for each chapter, along with their eventual fates. For more recent chapters, the fates will be added on a 1-3 chapter delay, essentially until they've been revealed in the story (or no longer relevant).

**The Citadel**

Few sovereigns ascended to the throne in as tragic a manner as Rhaenyra III Targaryen, not even kings and queens who had their predecessor murdered one way or another. With the Lorathi Plague still ravaging King's Landing, the new Queen could not even return to the city until almost a year after King Baelor's death, her coronation taking place instead in Oldtown and the Starry Sept, the original site of Targaryen crownings. Queen Rhaenyra was a broken woman by then, and would never recover from the horrible way she'd received her inheritance.

Most of the celebrating nobility at Prince Viserys's wedding escaped unscathed, the disease not infiltrating the Red Keep until weeks after the wedding, likely due to a discrete visit to the brothels of the lower city by one of the castle's servants or guards. Gwaine Tarbeck was amongst the first to succumb. While the future queen never forgot her first love, Lord Duncan of Moat Cailin, she was said to have grown very fond of her husband through their seventeen years of marriage, not in the least because the young knight's resemblance to 'Ser Dunk', though much shorter. (Ser Gwaine had impressed the king when he placed third in at the Tourney of Deep Den at the age of five and ten, unhorsing Duncan along the way, and the marriage also appealed to Baelor the Andal because of its intended against the late Gerold Lannister.)

As his mother had done with the Lannisport Fever of 209, King Baelor ordered a strict confinement of the capital, prohibiting travel in or out of King's Landing. This did not help the inhabitants of the city, or the royal family. Fearful for the young Prince Viserys, the King made one exception, sending the newlywed dragon and his wife, Lady Ellyn Reyne, on a ship bound for Lys, to convalesce until the plague had finished its deadly work. It was said that their destination was within sight when a horrible and rare storm blew through the summer sea, sinking the ship and drowning all those aboard.

Some accounts tell of servants who already carried the disease, that the royal couple were infected, and the storm was divine protection sent by the Gods of Lys to protect their own. Others say Lady Ellyn was pregnant when she drowned, thus the disaster cost House Targaryen two generations who might have sat on the Iron Throne. None of these accounts hold any credibility, nor can they be dismissed entirely. We will never know for sure.

What is known is that Prince Viserys and his beautiful wife outlived King Baelor by more than one moon. The disease struck him viciously, and Baelor I Targaryen died within a week of his grandson's departure. By most accounts, the exhausted king, never the joyous young knight remembered by the smallfolk since the passing of his wife, welcomed his death with open arms. Ravens were sent to Gulltown (being winter, Lord Arryn and the Princess's entourage did not travel further into the mountains), where Jon Arryn suggested that the new Queen sail to Oldtown for her coronation. A week after the ceremony, more ill news arrived from Lys, and it was said that Prince Lewyn Martell, the lone Kingsguard who'd accompanied Rhaenyra III to Gulltown, had to watch his charge day and night to ensure that she did not jump from the highest windows of the Hightower. (Hearing of the deaths of several of his sworn brothers in King's Landing, Prince Lewyn recruited Lord Gerold Hightower into the order during their time in the city...

* * *

**Roger Reyne - 257 AC**

There was something about a man like Hoster Tully which disarmed the most wary, Roger thought. The Lord of Riverrun was not a particularly great swordsman, passable for sure, but Roger reckoned he could cut him down easily even though he was a boy in his prime, and Roger many years past his. Nor did he care, nor did Hoster ever act in any belligerent or threatening manner, overplaying what skills he did not possess. Which made him dependable, reliable, the kind of ally Roger preferred.

"...that was my father's mistake...no one knew a damned thing about Jon Arryn. Except he was young, of course. My father thought young meant he might hesitate, that it meant he might be weak, not to be taken seriously..."

"Not you," Roger questioned the man cynically.

"I've learned my lessons. I've had no choice."

'You're a boy who's learned nothing,' Roger thought, but he'd use him anyway. Young and powerful was still powerful.

"Jon Arryn or not, your father was a fool to jump into war..."

"He could have beaten a northern army. Especially from the walls of Moat Cailin..."

"And the armies of the crown after that? Tyrells, Baratheons, marcher lords, aye, your father was lucky Selmy was just a boy then, not that it mattered, he was a fool for going to war without being prepared for every single enemy he could face, known or not."

The insult uttered, the young man did not take the bait. Good, he had tact, and patience.

"I'm not my father," Hoster simply asserted.

"And getting in bed with the Lannisters," Roger laughed, stroking his thick, brown beard, "that was his biggest mistake."

"That's why I'm sitting with you here, isn't it," Hoster mused, immune to all his insults, "and not Tianna Lannister."

"Only means you're not an imbecile. The Lannisters are a beast gelded, lame and crippled." But not forever, Roger knew. Lady Tianna could barely keep Casterly Rock together, and her uncle Tytos a bigger fool than the late Edwyn Tully, who deserved his senseless slaughter, not that he'd say this to his son. Yet the golden lions still held Casterly Rock, most of the Westerland houses still respected their name for no reason at all except dumb tradition, Roger had seen enough evidence of that when all but half a dozen houses rallied to Gerold the Golden's war against him...no, nothing lasted forever. He would not live forever, he could not hold up indefinitely and singlehandedly the weight of his family's hold on their kingdom, not for his sons, not for the grandsons and sons after that who would not be born until after he'd rotted away completely.

"You still fear them, don't you," the young man taunted him back with equal boldness. "The lions of Casterly Rock are wounded, crippled...but not dead."

"I'm the Queen's hand," Roger rebuffed dismissively. "Send for her enough virgin boys from Lys, and she'd give me the Reach along with all of the Westerlands."

Yet they both knew this was not true. Queen Rhaenyra might decide to give such an order one day, but few in the realm truly understood how...lost, the poor woman had become within her tortured mind. It was a fine line he walked, ruling on behalf of a woman completely incapable of ruling, yet clinging on to his power because of her very perceived approval of his rule across the realm. Aegon was dead, that was true, Aenys drinking himself somewhere to death in Volantis, but it mattered not, Rhaenyra's brothers aside, there were too many Targaryens out there for his comfort, any one of them could come and challenge her reign, and by connection, his stewardship, the moment he let slip just how far gone their Queen was.

Footsteps echoed from down the hall, and both he and Hoster stiffened as the aforementioned Jon Arryn, Master of War and upholder of their Queen's rule out of...well, not self interest, but honor? Duty, love?

Behind him walked Prince Jaehaerys, the youngest of King Baelor's brood who, like his sister, wore his dark brown hair long and untamed, resembling any Reyne cousin Roger might encounter in Castamere. Except, while they shared blood, this cousin of his, despite some Tyrell mannerisms inherited from his mother, held his allegiance only to House Targaryen. All three of them owed their positions to Queen Rhaenyra and her absence, except Roger knew clearly that he, unlike Arryn and Jaehaerys, would not cling and fight until his dying breath on behalf of their queen. He'd die in her name, the Queen's Hand had not come this far to be remembered a traitor and a scoundrel, but he'd curse his death until it was over, whereas the other two would give thanks to the Father for such a meaningful end.

The young Lord of the Vale nodded approvingly in Hoster's direction, as did the royal and erstwhile Master of Whisperers. Yet Jon did not speak, or settle into his chair, so Roger kept his eyes towards the doorway, until in stumbled Queen Rhaenyra III Targaryen, eyes glazed over drunkenly, staring into the distance as if she gazed hard enough, she could spy her long dead kinsmen. To his left, Jon Arryn winked, a rare display of emotion from the man, gleeful in his small triumph.

Dust wafted through the room when the Queen sat in the chair afforded her within the small council chambers. As she sat, her admittedly majestic purple eyes smiled and surveyed about the room, gracing them with her inhuman beauty, still undiminished through three and forty years of life, suffering, and madness, Roger admitted to himself the last part, she was as mad as Maegor, or worse. There remained charm in her eyes, across her ruby red lips, her smile brightening the drab room in an instant, and in that moment, Roger thought he saw what this woman could have been, had the plague not destroyed everything she had...glimpses of the blood and legacy passed to her from Aerea the Great, yet too much dragon in her blood to overwhelm a woman lacking the willpower and fortitude of her ancestors.

Then she glimpsed upon the newcomer, a stranger, a strange face to break through her veneer of courtesy and normalcy. "Who are you?" Her voice was cold, uttered in a way which would order Lord Commander Lars to strike down the intruder immediately, if none of them knew better of her...inconsistencies.

"Your Grace," Roger said obediently, reserving once spare glance at Jon to protest his annoyance at the unexpected royal intrusion, "you remember when we discussed last week to meet Lord Hoster Tully of Riverrun, for the vacant position as Master of Coin?"

"Ah right. Riverrrrunnn." Her words slurred, as if a child playing with the sound for the first time. "Lord Hosterrr Tullleee..."

"Your Grace," Hoster replied unfazed. Nor did he look at Roger angrily, blaming him for this unexpected royal ambush. "I know I'm but a young man..."

"You have whiskers," the queen said impassively, "you're old enough."

"Quite right, Your Grace," Hoster said gently. "I..."

"You hate the Starks?"

"I..." How he looked expectantly at Roger, meeting the queen was one thing, an honest interrogation by a madwoman another.

"Tully's hate Starks, my father told me."

"Why is that," Jon asked, coaxing her with his gentle voice, "Your Grace."

"Lord Tully's father tried to steal...a castle from Lord Stark, and failed." Her words weren't slurred, which meant she hadn't taken all that much dreamwine yet. The queen had managed to walk herself into the council chambers, after all. "Father said the Tullys will try again, so it is the crown's duty to make sure that...the castle, remains in the rightful hands of the Starks. Where it belongs."

'Damn you, Arryn,' Roger cursed in his mind, 'you can't leave well enough alone.'

He didn't give two damns about who held Moat Cailin. Neither ought Jon Arryn, whomever held the Neck and its boggy wastelands would not threaten the mountains of the Vale regardless, but Arryn _had_ to interfere, simply because the Lord of the Vale could not abide the idea of anything not being what it was once before. He'd give Lannisport back to the Lannisters too, Roger reckoned, if he could find an infernal way to do so.

"Your Grace," Hoster said politely, diplomatically, "I am not my father. My father made war against the North for what he believed to be his, that's no crime. But he made war against the wishes of the crown, that made him an outlaw. Yet, all outlaws deserve a trial, which my father would have submitted to, after his surrender. The Crannogmen cut him down, alone and unarmed, after he'd sued for peace...that is a crime too, which has yet to be answered for."

The queen's Hand had not intended it in this manner, but it seemed the Lord of Riverrun passed the test regardless. Hoster may well prove a valuable ally. He was a handsome young man, not yet twenty years of age, and Roger would send him to the queen's chambers if it could help their cause, but Her Grace was turning away any lad with even a smidgen of hair on his chest these days.

"If it's justice Lord Hoster seeks, and not Moat Cailin, then he should make his petition to the crown," Jon explained softly, as if scolding a truculent son, not that the man had any experience raising children firsthand. "A raven can be sent to Winterfell, command Lord Stark to find and bring the men who killed Lord Edwyn to King's Landing, for trial before the court.

"If they cannot be found, or are no longer alive," the queen's brother added, "then Lord Reed can be summoned in their place, and ordered to pay just recompense to Riverrun, if determined so by the court's judgment."

"They are fair words," the Queen said absentmindedly, though Roger wondered just how many of the words she'd actually listened to and understood. "Lord Hoster, do you agree? Lord Roger, can you tell Lord Stark of this?"

"It would be my honor, Your Grace." Hoster's face remained fixed on the queen, and Roger recognized the familiar lust stirring in the loins of the man. Rhaenyra was no young maiden, too sedated these days, a cruel shade of the beguiling creature she'd once been. Yet, that pale face, those purple eyes set against her dark hair, no, she could still charm any man or boy she wished to. He'd be tempted, sure, he's always been, Roger recognized how dangerous it was, playing with fire wearing a crown on its head. His family's worth and possessions meant more to him than royal cunny, even the best royal cunny ever to be or since.

His face remained impartial, stone, even as he was beginning to see the opportunity, and wondered if the young Lord of Riverrun was canny enough to recognize the same.

"At once, Your Grace," Roger replied agreeably. "As always, your country and your council are grateful for your wisdom and mercy. Let's hope the northern lords are wise enough to heed it."

"Let's hope so." She sat silent through the rest of the council meeting, mostly a listing of the grain storages remaining after the last winter. Afterwards Rhaenyra departed, unaccompanied by Jon Arryn, and Roger thought Her Grace would be too occupied to be observed outside her chambers for some time.

They were cleaning them, three boys he'd obtained for her. The Valyrian boy with the purple eyes came from one of the best Lysene establishments, and he'd probably lead the others, they'd told him. There was a wildling boy the Watch captured and spared in a raid, but the prize of the batch was Lord Yohn Royce, pure and untouched, heir to Runestone and handed to him by a father eager for more influence in court. It did not hurt to make allies, especially within Arryn's kingdom. The company ought to keep Her Grace entertained for up to several moons, Roger hoped, both her lusts and her delusions, as apparently the queen was under the belief these days that she was Rhaenyra I reborn, and any of the boys he'd sent to share her bed might contain the soul of Bloody Ben Blackwood, perversely mismatched lovers reunited a hundred years after the fact. He hoped she wouldn't discover this imaginary long lost spouse for quite some time.

"That was good," Roger said, secure in the chambers of the Hand's tower. "It's good, for her to believe she's the one ruling her council, not the other way around. It's good too, that the rest of the realm sees it, that lords like yourself will return to Riverrun and assure your vassals that rumors of the queen's...absence, are exaggerated."

"Good," Hoster questioned, eyes telling of the fury he'd carefully hidden in the council chambers. "Is Arryn fucking her, is that why she speaks with his voice, as his puppet?"

"Gods no," Roger laughed, "Jon wouldn't think of it, even though he's a widow and she's a widower. Those were her words undoubtedly, I doubt he spoke to her in advance. The Queen...when she's thinking clearly, she's her father's daughter. King Baelor's ghost lives inside her still, so whatever you'd expected of her father, expect from her...were I not here to guide you both."

She would have made a decent queen, Roger thought, if madness and grief hadn't ruined all of life for her, leaving only the boys in her bed and the dreamwine in her cups. It was Rhaenyra who ruled the country, after all, with Prince Jaehaerys's help, when all the rest of the realm sailed east to fight Daemon's Rebellion. The Princess had proved capable, nothing special, but capable enough. It was a shame, though not a waste however, and whatever suffering she'd endured to give him this power, Roger Reyne was not a man to throw away his blessings, received at the expense of his liege or not.

"You think this mess is salvageable," Hoster questioned him crossly, arms folded. "Can you sow Jon Arryn's lips shut and change the queen's mind on Moat Cailin? And don't give me your shit, I know it's just a castle, I don't obsess over it like my father. But he deserves his justice, and a couple of dead Crannogmen won't constitute just recompense for a great lord's murder."

He was not as subtle as Roger hoped, but then he was still a very young man, and only the passage of time would temper impatience with wisdom.

"I think they just gave us the opportunity unwittingly." Hoster blinked, and Roger continued. "You're right, you have the right to demand 'just recompense', from the Reeds...in the Neck."

Hoster frowned, and Roger allowed him the time to think. "Lands, you mean."

"On which you can build your own Moat Cailin, a castle aimed at the heart of Greywater Watch. It'd be your right, it'd abide by all the laws of the crown...except you know Elmer Reed, he's not the kind of man to let such an insult stand, neither are the wildmen he rules..."

"Provoke him, you mean?" For the first time since he'd met the man, Roger saw the greedy glee on Hoster Tully's young face.

He doubted the council would agree to appointing Lord Tully Master of Laws, but so long as Hoster returned to Riverrun a happy man, so would Roger celebrate the cementing of a much needed ally. He'd won the last war against Gerold Lannister not because of his allies, but despite an abject lack of them, when nearly all the Westerlands rallied to Casterly Rock's side. Indeed, Roger would have devoted more efforts towards plotting to break Princess Aerea's betrothal to Elbert Arryn in exchange for one of his own sons, but it wasn't worth it, not with so many other allies to be secured. So they were married to Brax's, Banefort's, Lydden's, one granddaughter already betrothed to the Florents. He'd marry a grandson to Queen Rhaenyra herself, except his sons could only seem to come up with daughters, no matter. For all his new allies by marriage, tenuous or not, none of them controlled an entire kingdom, not until now.

"Let the northerners be the aggressors in the eyes of the crown's law. You'll have your war, completely justified and as such, the crown can't intervene when you rightfully pursue it to its justified ends."

Yes, Hoster Tully would do just fine.

* * *

**The Citadel**

...all three of the Queen's brothers survived the plague. Prince Aegon traveled with his betrothed, Lady Paramount Tianna Lannister, to Casterly Rock shortly after the wedding. Her youngest brother Jaehaerys, deeply engaged in the lore of the Age of Heroes at the time, returned to the Citadel for the purpose of browsing their collections, and was present at his sister's coronation. Prince Aenys remained in the capital, but caught only a light case of the affliction.

Roger Reyne, Hand to King Baelor, remained in the capital as well. He did not show any signs of the disease, even as it ravaged the Red Keep, and it was said that the mighty Lord of Castamere and Lannisport was the only man the Lorathi Plague stood terrified of. Without any contravening orders from the new Queen, Lord Roger rightfully assumed that he was to retain the same position under the new regime, duly signing documents bequeathing Dragonstone to the new heir, Queen Rhaenyra's eldest surviving daughter Aerea. Jon Arryn, who accompanied the queen as she traveled to Highgarden for the remainder of her convalescence, now saw the prospect of a third royal Consort for his house, after Queen Aemma during the reign of Viserys I, and Queen Jeyne under the reign of Aegon III.

Queen Rhaenyra arrived at the capital subdued, hidden from the masses within her wheelhouse. The bodies of her beloved kin lost did not wait for her. King Baelor's remains were burnt out of tradition, Gwaine Tarbeck's because of the disease, and somewhere in the deepest reaches of the Summer Sea lay her beloved son Viserys. No one expected the queen to emerge from her mourning bright and ready to rule, but it became more and more apparent to the court that their monarch's mind was not well.

To cope with her loss, the Queen alternated abstaining from nearly all food and drink for weeks at a time, before gorging on grand feasts and taking wine from morning to night. More significantly, it was obvious that, rather than embracing her widowhood, the queen took increasing solace in the arms of a rapidly expanding list of lovers. It was rumored that Leyton Hightower had spent a night in her chambers in Oldtown, and more whispers emerged of several young squires who'd serviced her while she stayed in Highgarden, waiting for the plague to wane.

Faced with a Queen both unwilling and unable to rule, Roger Reyne held within his hands a double edged sword. On one hand, he could rule in Queen Rhaenyra's name for the duration of her reign, cementing his status as the most powerful man in the known world. On the other hand, there was no guarantee that he could maintain his Queen's crown, especially if word got out of her deficiencies. Though Rhaenyra I won the Dance and set the precedent that the eldest child would rule regardless of sex, there hadn't yet been a situation in practice where a weaker, more flippant woman could succeed and hold her position the way an Aenys I or Viserys I had, ruling feebly, yet unquestioned. Indeed, Rhaenyra II, the first woman ruler after Rhaenyra I, had been a second child who'd taken her throne through conquest and more importantly, at the invitation of the great lords of the realm, while both she and her successor Aerea the Great had already established their reputations as skilled rulers in the city of Lys by the time of their ascensions.

Whispers grew around court by 254 AC that perhaps the crown ought to be transferred to Prince Aegon, whose marriage to Lady Tianna, long delayed by the efforts Roger and his acolytes, finally found its set date. (Few knew for sure then or now to what degree the man did or did not covet his sister's crown.) Prince Aenys, an affable man for whom food and comforts were the greatest pleasures of his life, was sent east to represent the court's interests in Volantis (he stopped and remained in Lys for a year and a half on the way). There were assurances that Prince Jaehaerys was completely loyal and dedicated to his sister's rule, so Lord Roger left him in Oldtown for the time being, and would eventually invite him to court to serve in the Small Council.

Though they were often rivals, Lord Roger found a formidable partner in the Lord of the Vale. Jon Arryn, never exceedingly ambitious, was nevertheless determined to preserve his nephew's marriage to the future queen regnant. Fearful that the powerful Hand might sabotage the betrothal and somehow force or cajole Aerea to marry one of his own sons, Lord Jon took the Crown Princess under his wing, becoming a father figure and perhaps most influential figure in the upbringing of the future queen (even though she was already a grown woman at six and ten in 254).

While he could not delay forever the promised wedding between Prince Aegon and Tianna Lannister, Lord Roger did what he could to sabotage the couple, arranging for one of his sons to seduce the Lady Paramount, the affair conveniently discovered the night before the wedding feast. Enraged, the prince challenged Robert Reyne in a duel of honor. Lord Roger assented to the duel in the name of the Queen, and all the Westerland elite watched horrified when Lord Robert dealt the prince a fatal blow. It was said Queen Rhaenyra did not react to news of her brother's death, too enamored of her newest lover, who happened to be her nephew through Prince Jaehaerys.

No man was arrested for Aegon's death. Considering that Rhaenyra had just discovered the wondrous qualities of dreamwine, it is unlikely she even understood exactly what had transpired (her relationship with Aegon had been distant in life, though not adversarial). His rule secure, Lord Roger did not learn until much later that his son had impregnated the Lady of Casterly Rock. Ironically, this would cause his later downfall many years to come.

Wrought by shame and guilt for her role in the deadly scandal, Tianna Lannister drank in a panic a significant amount of moon tea once learning of her condition. Hastily marrying with three moons Maris Crakehall, one of her vassals, it soon became apparent that the Lady Paramount had been rendered completely infertile, leaving as her heir her uncle Tytos, and after him, her cousin Tywin, the man who would one day restore Casterly Rock to its former glory...

* * *

**Tywin Lannister - 260 AC**

The small wheelhouse bearing Crakehall banners came to a stop. Out stepped Lord Rowan Crakehall, a grizzled warrior of close to forty years of age, and behind him, a young man bearing plain armor, dressed as if he were the older man's squire.

"Torrhen's Square, my lord," Rowan said, deferring to the young squire, who duly nodded and walked past his lord towards the towering, barrel chested northman awaiting him. It wasn't winter, but nevertheless the northern climes were not as cold as Tywin had feared. His disguise sickened him, but sacrifices had to be made, so that suspicions were kept to a minimum.

"Lord Rickard," he asked, "or has my northern counterpart chosen discretion as well?" He spoke as if he were already Lord of Casterly Rock, and not merely an heir to an heir, though both his cousin Tianna and his father had no qualms towards Tywin assuming more and more control over the direction of their ancient, proud family.

"These are my lands, boy. No need for me to dress as a midwife and hide here."

"Very well." They all tested him, because of his tender age, so Tywin had learned to expect it. He'd overcome them all, he'd sworn a long time ago, except the man before him was not one he sought as an enemy. "The North is not my domain, thus the need for my deception. Can't have our enemies knowing of our meeting, not until we choose the time and opportune."

For all Roger Reyne knew, Tywin Lannister was suffering a dreadful fever in Casterly Rock, and Rowan Crakehall had traveled north to seek a marriage with Rickard's cousin Lyarra, as few knew that the woman was already betrothed to the Lord of Winterfell. Tywin knew how Rickard Stark withheld that particular piece of news for the very reason of arranging this meeting.

"Come," Rickard said, leading them to a small tent, while Lord Rowan obligingly remained behind by the wheelhouse, "I'll have you drink a proper northern ale with me now, none of your southern fruit wines."

"I'm looking forward to it," Tywin replied. He did not.

The swill tasted like swill. He drank it down regardless, willing himself to not betray his distaste, only for the man to motion for his squire, a Cerwyn boy, Tywin recognized from his armor, to pour him another. The man's gray eyes winked at him, indicating that he was knowingly reveling in Tywin's discomfort, and he gave thanks, because the more canny and less...well, northern, Rickard Stark was, the better he'd serve as an ally.

"To Roger Reyne," Rickard Stark toasted.

"To Hoster Tully," Tywin retorted back.

"Damn the man," the Lord of Winterfell cursed. "Not Hoster, he's just doing right by his family. But fucking Elmer Reed, if the man wasn't an idiot, I wouldn't be remembered as the Wolf who lost his Neck."

"You won't be, if we're successful."

"Aye, easier said than done."

The building of Greyswamp Keep along the Kingsroad a few day's ride from Greywater Watch, upon the lands granted Hoster as compensation for his father's death, had been intended all along as a provocation, one which the rash crannogman lord had not failed to respond to immediately, sending a hundred men who'd murdered in cold blood every single one of the Rivermen laying the foundations of the castle. Among the dead lay young Darros Blackwood, the heir to Raventree Hall whom Hoster had cleverly charged with leading the construction. Not only was the provocation grounds for Riverrun to rightful justify any declaration of war, the killing of a highborn Blackwood, descendant of Rhaenyra I and distant kin to Rhaenyra III, meant that even if the crown were to remain neutral, any hints of it siding with the Reeds and their sponsors in Winterfell meant a devastating loss of face for House Targaryen. Not even Jon Arryn could object, Tywin had heard, when all of the Riverlands and nearly half his own kingdom marched their armies deep into the north, furiously fighting their way through the Neck before taking Moat Cailin from Arlan Harrowyn, ruling in his father's place at the time.

"My bannermen want me to declare the North independent again, name me a king, and take back what's rightfully ours, declare bloody vengeance on Hoster Tully. I'd like to."

"Why don't you?"

Rickard guffawed. "Seven kingdoms, the North one of seven. Or two kingdoms, one's one, the other six determined to subjugate mine for the rest of time. Hoster Tully's my enemy now. Declare independence, and every one of your fellow liege lords would declare against me, I'd make damned Hoster the most powerful man in the seven...ahem, six kingdoms, for being their original champion. So I defy the crown, wear a crown, and take back Moat Cailin. I'll be spending the rest of my life keep you southrons out of my lands, if I'm lucky."

He noted that the Lord of Winterfell had no qualms about speaking to him as an equal, despite his age, despite the fact that he was a Lord Paramount and Warden and Tywin merely an heir to an heir. Of course Rickard could just be desperate for allies right about now, Starks were not known to be political animals, old man Cregan excepted, but necessity breeds change, Tywin figured. But it seemed to him that Rickard was not your typical Stark or northman, that were he born south of the Neck, Lord Rickard would have proven every bit the player in court as that of Tywin's enemies.

"No southern army can hold the north," Tywin opined. "Nothing but dragons can force its submission."

"Aye, doesn't mean I want to waste the lives of good northern men for the next hundred years, not when I can have discussions like this with your lordship."

Ah, so now it was time to get down to the grime of it. Rickard Stark may be however more or less astute than most of his northern brethren, but no Stark was fit for all the subtleties of court life south of the Neck. Or Moat Cailin, Tywin reminded himself of the new boundaries Roger Reyne carved for his brethren through the seven kingdoms.

A raised eyebrow, and the Cerwyn boy scurried away. Satisfied he was out of earshot, Tywin began.

"Edwyn Tully's mistake was making war against the crown's wishes. Hoster Tully's advantage is that he had the full backing of the crown."

"Yer friend Roger is the crown, for all intents and purposes. There's a small chance I can make war on Riverrun and get away with it, if I don't threaten the man. Unlikely, but still a chance. You, however..."

"Cannot allow his continued stature ruling on behalf of Queen Rhaenyra. But nor can you. Doesn't matter, war cannot elude any move I'd make, and you're not a man to take a risk on the smallest of chances, so here we sit."

"So here we sit," Rickard reckoned bitterly. "Then there's Jon Arryn and Prince Jaehaerys, who could replace Lord Reyne as Hand."

"I've only met Lord Jon sparingly," Tywin said thoughtfully, "but it's no secret he disapproves of the Tully's holding the Neck. On the other hand, he's also the kind of man to recoil at the kind of plotting we're doing right now, even if he agrees with our reasoning."

"The queen's brother?"

"Clever," Tywin assessed, "but timid. He's not going to stick his neck out for anyone."

He'd been to court but once. Every move he made, Tywin had to take care, so that the queen's powerful Hand did not perceive him as a threat. Yet every move he made was ultimately intended upon destroying the Reynes, wiping all memory of their name from the memories of the realm.

"You're without children. As am I, though I hope to have an heir or three sooner than later. Problem is, Arryn doesn't have any children we can betroth them to."

"There is the man himself. I've betrothed my sister Genna to Gawen Westerling already. It's a good match for them both, and Lord Gawen is certain to take offense if I break it. But to lose an ally like the Westerlings, so as to gain one in the Arryns..."

"Lord Jon's not ancient," Rickard mused, "but he's no spring chicken either. Two marriages gone dry, you think he'd go for a third?"

"Not if Prince Viserys lived," Tywin explained. "Jon Arryn betrothed his heir to Princess Aerea to get a cousin of the crown sitting in the Eyrie one day. The prospect of one man, or woman, inheriting _both_ the Vale and the Iron Throne...I don't believe it sits well with the man. Yes, he could arrange the terms now, ask that Princess Aerea bequeath the Vale to her second born, yet ultimately it's out of his control, he won't live to see it. Nor our future queen, really."

Only a fool would entrust his family's well-being to events which would occur after his death, Tywin thought.

"Aye, here's to us not too far in the grave by then," Rickard toasted again, carefully scrutinizing him as if a man purchasing a whore. "That's a fine neck you have there, Tywin. You'll be the one sticking it out under Roger Reyne's throat. Jon Arryn agrees to marry yer sister, and you've got your enemy cornered with one stroke, one brilliant move. He refuses, then Roger knows your game regardless, and he won't rest until yer finished."

Yes, the northman would do for an ally, he'd take what he could get from a Stark, and this was bar better than what Tywin had originally predicted of the man.

"Then there's the south. Our three kingdoms, with the Arryns, crowned and held together the realm for Rhaenyra the Fat. The axis of the crown rotated towards Highgarden and Storm's End during King Baelor's reign. Lord Ormund is an old man, he's retired and wants little to do with politics these days, but I know his son Steffon well, we met at the tourney at Highgarden. Once he inherits, Storm's End may very well be eager to assert itself once more."

"I've not heard much of Luthor Tyrell..."

"A fool," Tywin interrupted contemptuously. "Not worth the trouble he can inflict upon our cause."

"Our cause," Rickard asked, one eyebrow raised curiously, mistaking his vehemence for youthful enthusiasm.

"Against our enemies."

The problem was that Highgarden could not be bought. Not that he had the gold to buy them, the Reynes holding all the wealth of his kingdom from their mines to the trade in Lannisport. Luthor had a son, a young boy named Mace, and Tywin had one last Lannister girl he could betroth. But Rickard Stark did not need to know that Joanna wasn't going to be used as bait for lords and allies, not while he lived.

"Dorne," Rickard continued, eager to rattle off the list of kingdoms, if only because the man's mind refused to linger on one. Was it because he refused a deeper contemplation, or had he, like himself, thought through all the men, and women, who could help their cause long before their meeting? "That's where the queen resides now, isn't it?"

Tywin nodded. "In the Water Gardens. It's a shorter trip by ship from Lys for the...companions Roger Reyne keeps her distracted with." If there was any proof that the Gods simply could not favor their enemies, the mere fact that the Lord of Castamere (he refused to acknowledge Lannisport to the Reynes deep within his heart) had reduced the hallowed position of the crown's Hand to serving as no better as a mere pimp, ought give outrage to noble and smallfolk alike, much less the nature of the companions the brothel-master Hand arranged for his liege.

"Lucky them, eh?" Another wink. "I'm surprised, thought Her Grace decided to marry again."

"She has. Her husband's not in any shape, or age, to protest." He spoke with absolute certainty, raising Rickard's interest. Limited as his resources were, Tywin still received his fair share of whispers. Sure, he could not outbid the Reynes for loyalty with mere gold, but rough men like Roger made enemies he'd dismiss without a second thought, serving boys and stablehands he'd had whipped and beaten for no good reason.

"You know for sure?"

"A Dayne boy. Arthur. They say he's exceptional with the sword, even at his age. Would have one day wielded his family's heirloom had he not been sold by the Reynes like a common whore."

"Aye, she likes them warriors and soldiers? But the kid's not enough for her?"

"She's a Targaryen, after all." He had to remain careful. Common interests or not, the Lord of Winterwell was still a stranger, and he was treading too close to treason in front of a man he could not fully trust yet. But again, Rickard Stark had little interest in dwelling. Hopefully the man understood the need for discretion. Much as Reyne and Arryn had little reason to like or trust each other, they both understood just how perilous the open revelation of Rhaenyra III's true and deepest depravities would be to their positions, and the realm itself. Nor did Tywin have any inherent interest in wrecking their game, his aim after all was not to destroy the Iron Throne, but simply to replace family's enemy's place beside it.

"What about the Princess of Dragonstone," the older man questioned him. "The longer the queen...convalesces away from the capital, the longer I'd expect her heir to name herself regent, in fact if not in name. If Queen Rhaenyra's as...far gone, as you claim, as we all suspect, then she won't be in any position to unname her Hand. Neither would Jon Arryn, however powerful he is, however many powerful allies he has. Short of open rebellion, Princess Aerea's the only person who has the authority to make any changes to Her Grace's Small Council, aside from Reyne."

"An intriguing prospect," Tywin agreed. It would seem that, despite the disparities in pacing, both he and Lord Stark had long come to the same conclusions. "If the fat queen was Maegor with teats, then Princess Aerea is Jon Arryn with teats, she might as well be the man's daughter. That she has a brother, means she'll look to more than just Reyne, or the Vale, to support her claim whenever the succession happens."

They said the queen's dreamwine had been added a few doses of milk of the poppy for several years now. Adding that to all the plain wine her Dornish hosts poured into her on a daily basis, Tywin wondered whether the next succession would occur sooner rather than later...which mean they had less time than either one of them might imagine.

"It's a game then," Rickard laughed loudly. "We guess whether the child the princess is carrying is a boy or girl, then race to birth a wee one to marry the next in line for the crown...all of us, Starks, Lannisters, Baratheons perhaps, so long as we stand firm, no matter which one of our houses gets the royal marriage, she marries her heir with one of us, she gets all our kingdoms together, rather than just Castamere, Lannisport, and the damned Tully's."

If the northman was as keen as Tywin suspected, then he'd already know that the advantage lay with Casterly Rock. Much as it hurt to send her away, Tywin had never the less convinced Lady Tianna years before in asking Lady Anya Waynwood, close friend of Jon Arryn, who ruled with the Royces as regents in the Eyrie while their lord ruled the empire at court, to take Joanna under her tutelage. It was no coincidence that the Princess Aerea visited her favorite kingdom and castle often, and it did not surprise Tywin for his lovely cousin to have struck up a friendship with the Crown Princess, enough so that there was already ample talk she may serve as one of Aerea's ladies in waiting one day.

What a relief that had been, when he'd heard of Prince Viserys's shipwreck along with his bride's drowning, the prospect of yet another Reyne consort might had saddled him with too deep a hole to dig his family out of, before he could've even begun. Tywin allowed himself to smile, and drank his ale with more gusto than he had all afternoon. It tasted less disgusting, now that he'd finished most of his glass.

"Let our games begin then, Lord Stark."

* * *

**The Citadel**

...once the Second War for Moat Cailin ended with Tully dominion of the Neck up to the contested castle in question, all lords within Westeros, including Hoster Tully, must have wondered when the North would retaliate and instigate the next war. Sure, with an increasingly incapacitated monarch, power might remain indefinitely in Roger Reyne's for the rest of Rhaenyra III's reign, along with any house aligned with Castamere. One can argue that the powerful Hand, and Warden in the West, became complacent in his power, or that he'd expected more time, believing that Rhaenyra III's rule may last beyond 263 AC.

By 258 AC, the queen, whether out of Lord Reyne's volition or her own, had already made her first trip the Water Gardens in Dorne, where the ruling Princess Trysta Martell happily provided her with steady boatloads of young courtesans sent over from Lys and beyond. When war broke out in 259, Rhaenyra's residence became permanent, and she would again never return to King's Landing. Having actual possession of the monarch's person gave Dorne steadily increasing leverage within the realm as it had not since the early reign of Aerea I, and Princess Trysta pressed her advantage by arranging for Rhaenyra to marry one of her vassals, the future Lord Commander Arthur Dayne, though he was only a boy of twelve at the time. (It is said that the queen, far gone by then, believed the future knight on some days to be the reincarnation of her first love, Duncan Harrowyn, though the old man indeed outlived his former lover, and other days that of Gwaine Tarbeck, her departed husband, unable to understand the latter presumption a mathematical impossibility.)

The circumstances of the queen's death are somewhat muddied, though one can presumably trust the word of a man of such repute as the future Sword of the Morning. Having drank an exceptional amount of wine the night before, Rhaenyra vomited sometime in her sleep, and her young husband found her choked to death by morning. (Indeed, it was his failure to save his wife which drove Ser Arthur not to return to Starfall, or pursue children through a second marriage, but to immediately request to his gooddaughter, now the reigning Queen Aerea II, for a position in her Queensguard next time one opened up.)

By the time Rhaenyra III died as a result of all her overindulgences, not yet nine and forty years of age, the Crown Princess had already asserted her power, forcing Roger Reyne's resignation from the Small Council late in 262 AC. A surprising ally of the coalition, comprised chiefly of houses Arryn, Stark, Lannister, and Baratheon, came from the Martells in Dorne, who knew as well as any the fragile state of the crown's person, yet agreed to terms without so much as a betrothal such as one between the Princess of Dragonstone's first born son Aegon, and Trysta's eldest daughter Elia Martell.

Apparently the new Crown Prince had already been promised to whichever of the other houses saw their first daughter born. The ladies Lyarra Stark and Cassana Estermont kept discovering boys in their birthing bed, so it took until three years into her reign when a newborn Cersei Lannister was immediately betrothed to the future king in 266 AC. A daughter, Lyanna, was born to Lord Stark later that year, but Winterfell made no great push on her behalf, settling instead for Prince Aemon, Aerea II's second son.

Little could the new queen predict that these were but the first of the carefully arranged marriages that would fail to materialize during the chaotic aftermath of Roger's Rebellion...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rhaenyra III Targaryen (214 AC - 263 AC)  
> Reign (253 AC - 263 AC)
> 
> Also called:  
> Rhaenyra 'the Depraved'  
> Rhaenyra 'the Mad'  
> Rhaenyra 'the Impure'
> 
> Hands of the Queen  
> Roger Reyne (253 AC - 262 AC)  
> Jaehaerys Targaryen (262 AC - 263 AC)
> 
> Issue:  
> Viserys Targaryen (b. 237 AC)  
> Aerea Targaryen (b. 238 AC)  
> Baela Targaryen (b. 240 AC)  
> Daeron Targaryen (b. 243 AC)  
> Visenya Targaryen (b. 245 AC)


	10. Aerea II Targaryen - "The Just"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another long chapter for another long reign here...

**The Citadel**

...both the terms 'Roger's Rebellion' and the 'Third War for Moat Cailin' are misnomers to a degree. For one, Rickard Stark's northern army ignored the disputed fort entirely, sailing directly down the Saltspear in 264 AC to directly attack the Riverlands north of Seagard, advancing as far as Fairmarket before defeating a combined Frey and Mallister army on their rearguard. At the same time, a surprise advance from the Vale took Castle Darry without much adversity before advancing on Harrenhal, forcing Hoster Tully to scramble and separate his armies, even as he heard disquieting rumors of yet a third attacking force embarking from the Stormlands.

Nor was this war one instigated by Roger Reyne; in fact, one could say that the war was essentially a rebellion of the realm against the former Hand's rule and accumulated power, with the implicit approval of Queen Aerea herself as signaled by her initial neutrality. Just as crucially, the war also represented an attempt by the great houses to reassert their positions relative to the crown, even though it was one of their own who'd ruled on behalf of the crown during Rhaenyra III's reign (nor was Baelor I at all a heavy handed monarch).

Thus was the price paid by Aerea II Targaryen for her rebellion against her mother's longtime caretaker. Though Rhaenyra still reigned when Lord Roger was forced off the Small Council, clearly her successor was both impatient to assume a regency role over the absent queen, and recognized that she did not want to be beholden to the Lord of Castamere and Lannisport by the time of her own succession (or have her succession be beholden to the whims of one tremendously powerful man). The flurry of betrothals between the noble houses which followed the war is example enough of the shared aims between nobility and crown beyond disputed territories like Lannisport and Moat Cailin; Houses Baratheon and Martell did not share the goals of the Starks and Tully's, but Lord Steffon and Princess Trysta chose to enter into the alliance anyway, so as to exert the influence of their houses beyond merely their respective kingdoms.

Pushed out of government, Roger Reyne was not unprepared for the coming conflict. Through his tenure as Hand he'd first arranged for the death of Rhaenyra III's primary rival claimant, her eldest brother Aegon, all the while cultivating the next man in line, her brother Aenys, sending ample output from his disputed gold mines towards funding the opulent prince's lifestyle in Essos. Disputing Aerea II's legitimacy, Lord Roger claimed the queen was actually the bastard offspring of an illicit affair by her mother and her hedge knight, Duncan 'the Tall', he then arranged for the presumptive Aenys II to travel from Qohor to Pentos, where his chosen candidate could take shelter within the walls of the independent Free City while awaiting the results of the war (it would have been out of the question for Prince Aenys, morbidly obese and barely able to mount a horse by this time, to lead any armies into battle).

(As to Queen Aerea II's paternity, the rumors cannot been dismissed entirely. It is a confirmed fact that Rhaenyra III had taken on the then hedge knight turned castellan as a lover prior to her marriage to Gwaine Tarbeck. All records confirm that Duncan was assuredly at Harrenhal at the time of Prince Viserys's conception. For Aerea, royal records do show the man's reception in Red Keep several moons prior to when the future queen would have been conceived, but also that he departed well outside a more ominous timeframe towards her legitimacy.

Supporters of Aenys's claim then and now point to their opponent's physical stature; at nearly six feet tall, Aerea stood heads above most women, but Gwaine Tarbeck would have also been considered a tall men compared to anyone except Lord Duncan. Inheriting the dark brown-red hair of her mother and grandfather, the Queen was described by most as a fair and 'handsome' woman, a far cry from the beauty that was her mother; the fact that Gwaine Tarbeck was said to have resembled Duncan Harrowyn only further muddies the waters on that front.)

Besides Qohor, the queen's eastern dominions remained neutral, as surely none of the Free Cities wished to be dragged into conflicts a continent away, and while King Maelor of the Qohor Protectorate had granted sanctuary to the claimant prince, he knew better than to force his native populace into war, sending only a handful of sellswords and Westerosi expatriate settlers, half of whom were intercepted by Volantene forces while furtively traveling down the Rhoyne. (Maelor would later disclaim any knowledge of the plot after the war.)

To the Reyne-Tully alliance did arrive several of the major houses of the Reach, including the Florents, Rowans, and Tarly's, despite Highgarden's carefully stated neutrality (as Queen Aerea did not declare war against the 'rebels', Lord Luthor Tyrell was under no obligation to raise his banners on the crown's behalf). The arriving reachmen relieved a siege of Lannisport conducted by Ser Kevan Lannister, Lord Tywin's brother, and the young and inexperienced commander lost to a combined Reach and Reyne force, which included Tarbeck and Brax banners by now, at Dullivant's Cliffs, ten leagues north of Crakehall.

The Lannister banners retreated north, then pivoted east down the Gold Road to join with Steffon Baratheon's army, secure in the knowledge that Casterly Rock's weaknesses from the last war had been sufficiently plugged and defended. From the capital, Lords Tywin and Jon Arryn, the latter the Queen's new Hand once the war began, watched with satisfaction as thousands of Dornishmen poured freely into the open fields of the Reach (again, with no interference from Highgarden), taking first Horn Hill before marching northwards towards the castles of the other lords who'd allied themselves to Castamere. Hightailing back south to defend their homes, Roger Reyne found his numbers depleted again. Deciding that Casterly Rock was not worth the long siege for the time being, the beleaguered lord instead marched his armies into the Riverlands, where he hoped to steer his ally from certain defeat.

By now, his friend Lord Hoster already found himself besieged within the halls of Riverrun, northern armies outside his gates. Moving to help relieve the siege, Roger was forestalled by an advancement of Jon Arryn's troops, placing themselves between Reyne's position and Riverrun. Hearing of the approaching Stormlander army from the south, he mounted and ordered defensive trenches dug atop a hill called High Heart, awaiting the final judgment of the Gods upon his rebellion...

* * *

**Aerea II Targaryen - 265 AC**

"The Long Night is coming. Darkness will reign from sea to sea, death will be the only God who watches over us all..."

"What was that?"

Though her mind had been on other matters beforehand, what remained of the war, the sure to be messy peace which was to come, upon hearing the old hag's words every piece of marrow in the queen's bones shivered as cold as ice, as cold as death.

"Apologies, Your Grace," a hurried and agitated Tywin Lannister rushed over to her tent, looking furiously at the odd scene they shared together. He shook one thin finger angrily at Ser Arthur, the only whitecloak in sight. "Such...rabble should not be allowed to grace the presence of our queen!"

"It's fine, Lord Tywin," Aerea said, raising a steady hand at her vassal. "I told Ser Arthur to allow them. We did battle on their land, burned down their farms, left ashes and blood and ghosts upon their homes. The people here deserve their audience, and any recompense the crown may offer for all we've burdened their lives with."

Her chest heaved, even as she tried speaking calmly to her calm lord, her stomach felt like death itself, her head drowning in dreams and memories she'd thought she'd forgotten.

"Very well," Tywin replied in disgust, barely deigning to look at the two supplicants. He walked away, and Aerea returned to the hag, who bore an admittedly...gross visage. The woman who accompanied her, who walked the half blind hag all the up the hill of High Heart to plead their cases before the Queen was actually pretty, in a common kind of way. Her name was Jenny, the queen remembered.

"Stay, Lord Tywin." She'd have to speak to the man about showing more concern for the smallfolk, if she could but think, or survive this encounter. The Queen recited the words the hag said to her, which she'd heard only once before. "...darkness will reign from sea to sea, death will be the only God who watches over us all..."

Aerea stared into the blind eyes of the witch, and saw approval, recognition.

"...until the great hero comes, through fire reborn," the Queen finished. All eyes stared at her strangely now around the fire, save for the two supplicants. "The last time I saw my mother," she explained to this small war council of hers, "she died, less than two moons after I last sailed from the Water Gardens. I bid her farewell, I promised I'd visit her again, though...I wonder if she knew already. It was just the two of us," Aerea looked up at Arthur, "Ser Arthur was training then, and...Her Grace said those exact same words to me. I thought it was just the dreamwine and the milk..."

Her words dried away, and the queen felt like a child before her assorted audience.

"A plain woods witch," Lord Barristan muttered beside her. "Low magic and parlor tricks some of them might be capable of, I've heard it aye. Never seen it myself..."

"Perhaps," Aerea whispered quietly. Quickly, all her highborn company faded away, until the queen saw only the witch and her companion. Lost in her memories, she did not recall the words, but seemed to draw them out of her very blood. "The promise of ice and fire must be renewed..."

"...blood enemies joined as friends and lovers..." The witch cackled while she spoke, and Aerea thought she glimpsed even Barristan Selmy shivering beside her.

"...and from the seeds of the blood red fish...," Aerea trailed off. "That was all she said to me. Her Grace...mother...she fell asleep then, the wine was too much for her...I left her lying there, snoring..."

Could she have done more for her, had she stayed? She'd thought it her duty to rule for her mother, so that what memories of her reign would not be consigned entirely to vultures like Roger Reyne. Did a daughter's duty cost her mother her life? Aerea had asked herself this question every day since she'd reigned, and expected to do so every day until she died.

The queen leaned forward and tried to see past the blind witch's beady, blank eyes.

"What comes after that? From what comes the blood red fish?" They must think her mad now, Lord Tywin first among them, yet Aerea did not care, she had to know.

"...comes the..."

The queen did not hear the woman's next words. A belligerent shout echoed from her right, it was Harry Vance, one of the few lords sworn to Riverrun who'd defected to the crown. Not a man to be trusted, for sure, but she'd use all the help she could get to end the war as quickly as possible.

"Aye, bloody red fish?" His words slurred, and Aerea thought she could smell his rancid breath from where she sat, reeking of wine. "That's what they said of Hoster Tully's babe, bloody red fish girl, fine mane o' hair red as her mother's Whent bush the moment she crawled out o' her womb..."

"Quiet man!"

"You will cease your drunken ramblings at once, you will not sully our Queen's ears with your vulgarities!"

Selmy and Tywin chided the man, and immediately Harry Vance shrunk back, aghast at his outburst. Beside her, Arthur relaxed his shoulders.

"Such...insolence must be punished," Tywin said to her, young face curled up in a snarl. "Fifty lashes would be merciful!"

Aerea nodded, her mind was not contemplating trivial obscenities anytime soon. "Fifteen," she said absentmindedly. "Lord Vance fought well today, we'll forgive this one drunken trespass, so long as he does not repeat his mistake..."

"Mercy, Your Grace, a thousand thanks..."

Aerea waved the drunkard away as guards dragged him towards his punishment, turning back towards the hag. "What was it, milady? From the blood red fish comes the..."

"The Prince who was promised," she screeched, unaware of her piercing loudness, "reborn, who will bring the Dawn!"

The witch's words still rang in her ears days later, inside her very soul where within the halls of Riverrun Queen Aerea sat in the lord's chair to pass down judgement upon the men she'd decided were enemies of the realm.

"...Roger of House Reyne," Aerea of the House Targaryen, Second of Her Name declared, "your trial was decided at High Heart, your guilt determined by your defeat by Ser Arthur in the court of combat..."

She'd fallen sick on camp food, and thus trailed Steffon Baratheon's army by half a day. By the time she'd arrived at High Heart before nightfall, the battle had been fought to a draw. Reynes's defenses were strong, both Steffon and Tywin assured her that the battle would be over by the next mid afternoon, but Aerea had chosen to leave the capital and abandon all pretense of neutrality not to see more blood shed, but exact opposite.

"I should have died on that hill," Roger Reyne thundered at her, his shoulder bandaged from the duel. "Let me be then, have your knights do the bloody deed and end it."

The Queen sent her summons to her mother's longtime Hand the next morning, commanding him to stand down by orders of the crown. No longer was the war then one fought between her vassals, but a rebellion if the cornered lion of red continued defying her. He'd chosen a trial by combat, as she'd half expected, and Ser Arthur had not let her down. Not in knocking away his sword with one clean blow, not in sparing the man even when the mighty old warrior begged her knight to deal him the killing blow, as he did now.

"The condemned do not decide their fates, Lord Reyne." Her voice did not waver, she was good at this and Aerea knew it, sounding commanding, like the royal queen they all expected. Like a man when she wanted to, so they could almost forget it was a woman who ordered them about. "You have committed crimes against the crown. You also given much of your life in service to the crown, to my mother, Her Grace Rhaenyra, Third of his Name. I commend you for that, and you will continue to serve the realm as a sworn brother of the Night's Watch."

The wounded lion growled, yet he would have been a fool not to expect this decision. Rickard sneered, the northman would be happy to have his enemy below his thumb at Castle Black. Tywin was disappointed. He'd be more disappointed, Aerea knew, once she'd leave Castamere in the hands of Roger's granddaughter Meryenne, rather than hand it to Casterly Rock, or have the old keep destroyed altogether. No, Aerea was growing more and more certain that Lord Tywin's use to her was coming to an end. He was capable, he was cunning, but far too dangerous, and she could find men with the two former qualities but less of the latter.

They brought up the next lord for her judgment. Hoster Tully was not bound in chains like Roger. He'd surrendered Riverrun, a practical decision, considering the man had run out of allies, and for that Aerea chose to allow him a more comfortable confinement than Rickard Stark might have wished.

"I'm a proud man, Your Grace," the man began. His proud blue eyes shone through the room, yet with hardness came uncertainty, and fear. "So was my father. He defied the crown when he began the First War for Moat Cailin. But I broke no such law in my war."

"You did not," Aerea answered calmly. She could not help but look at the corner of the room, where the Lady of Riverrun stood, soft and gentle eyes weeping. On one arm Minisa Whent clutched her newborn babe...

_from the seeds of the blood red fish_

...and another set against her stomach, almost hidden by the sheets cradling the young Catelyn Tully. 'She's with another child,' Aerea suspected. 'Or she's playing me. Or both.'

"Nor did you commit any crimes when Lord Rickard waged the Third War for Moat Cailin against you." She stopped, and stared down the corridor where they'd dragged out the former Lord of Castamere, the first steps towards his wintry exile. "But did you denounce your allies in Castamere, when they declared me a pretender to the throne?"

Hoster chuckled bitterly, and bent his neck to hide his eyes from her. "Aye, then tell me your judgment already. Do I lose my neck now, or let it freeze off, or let some wildling savge do the job?"

Again, she looked to towards Hoster's young wife. Her hair was a blazing bright red, red which shone bright, not resembling blood at all. If she could beg, Aerea thought. But no, the Lady of Riverrun was highborn, taught from an early age too much pride for her own good.

"If you die today," Aerea II Targaryen continued, "your daughter Catelyn inherits Riverrun. If I send you to the Wall today, your daughter Catelyn inherits Riverrun."

"My brother lives," the proud man protested. All the court would have noticed the certainty disappearing from the man's voice, as his fingers began to shiver.

"Your daughter will inherit," the queen commanded, turning her head towards the rear of the room, where Brynden Tully stood, next in judgment. "It is the crown's command. He can accompany you to the Wall, or he can die by your side. Like I said, either way, your daughter will inherit..."

The chambers were silent. No one knew what she intended, her lips had been shut even to her closest confidantes. Perhaps it was because Aerea had not known with certainty the justice she'd pronounce then. Not until now, when she could gaze into the eyes of an enemy in defeat, and see into their souls.

'And their brood.' Only the whimper of the babe Catelyn echoed against the walls of the silent, breathless chambers.

"A child of less than one to rule a kingdom," she continued. The words came easier now. "A girl, no less. Imagine the chaos, when they come for her, when they bite pieces off of her, with no regent appointed to rule in her stead...by orders of the crown..."

"Alright," Hoster snarled. "I get your picture. What do you want from me?"

Finally. "You will relinquish all your claims to Moat Cailin, to all domains from the Neck to Greyswamp Keep, including the Greyswamp Keep, with all the lords of the realm gathered here to bear witness before the Gods."

Angrily gray eyes swirled at her from another direction. Rickard Stark was not about to be pleased with what she was about to say, nor did Aerea expect satisfaction from the Lord of Winterfell. Not now, not for some time.

"Your Grace, do you mean to..."

"I mean it," she replied Rickard icily. "Lord Hoster, you will remain in Riverrun." She swore she heard Lady Minisa breathe a sigh of relief from the other side of the great hall. "When I leave Riverrun, Lady Catelyn will come with me. You may have more children, if you wish. When they reach their seventh nameday, they will join their sister in the Red Keep, each and every one of them."

Hoster Tully nodded, growing more satisfied even as Rickard Stark snarled further in anger. The blue eyes of Lady Minisa gasped, both reveling in her relief, and also understanding the cruel nature of the respite granted to her by the crown. It would be the mother who suffered the most, Aerea thought, even though she deserved it the least. But it had to be.

"When your heir, whether it's to be Lady Catelyn, or a son waiting in your wife's belly, reaches the age of six and ten, she, or he, will assume Lordship of Riverrun. On that day, Lord Tully, you shall bid farewell to your family and travel north to Castle Black, and give your regards to Lord Roger, should he still live when you arrive. Lady Minisa will be your only wife, you shall take no other, if she cannot give you a son then that is the judgment of the Mother herself upon you."

"Ha!" It was Lord Rickard to reacted first, chortling in laughter until his giant, worn hands were holding on to his knees. "Aye, leave it to Your Grace, tender and merciful, all while she sticks the dagger deepest into yer enemy's heart!" Walking up to his enemy, he knelt so that when he spoke, spit splashed upon the younger man's nose. "Lord Hoster, if I had a good ale in my hand, I'd toast you, to one blessing after another, one child after another, each a girl, each time you think it buys you a few years worth..."

"Are you done, Lord Stark?" Her tone was not harsh, but more abrupt than a powerful ally should expect. Rickard Stark backed away, recognizing that he may have crossed a line in openly taunting his enemy before such a formal proceeding.

"Your Grace, I apologize..."

Here came the delicate part. Allies today did not mean allies forever. The question was how far she was willing to push it, to walk the fine line between preempting enemies and making enemies.

_"...blood enemies joined as friends and lovers..."_

"Lord Stark," she commanded, willing herself to bear the storm, "your cause was just. Yet it was you who invited this war upon the realm, who invited yourself into Lord Hoster's lands..."

They all studied her carefully, she was a new queen on the throne after all, and Aerea did not doubt that each and every man in the room listened to her every word for glimpses and hints on how they could use her to their advantage through the rest of her life. She would look at Jon, for assurance, and support, but did not dare to, because she could not be seen as beholden to anyone, not even the man Aerea considered a second father.

"I invite you then, Lord Rickard to King's Landing. I invite you to serve on the Small Council. I invite you to bring your son Brandon, and I invite you to seal the peace this day, by betrothing Brandon Stark to Lady Catelyn Tully, so that no Stark or Tully will fight each other and waste the lives of our people for vanity or vengeance ever again."

It was said. An order, disguised as an invitation, issued before all the most powerful men in the realm. For Stark to refuse her here would be a slight, an insult which no man, not even Tywin, could expect her to forget. And if Lord Stark did refuse her, well, it wasn't necessarily war, the North could always withdraw back into the ice, as it had for most of her family's dynasty, but this was not her plan. No, the realm had to come together, no more of these petty wars between vassals for which even the crown itself served no better as a tool to be bartered or bandied around by one faction of lords or another.

To her relief, the large wildman cackled in laughter. "A Tully in Winterfell?" He appeared to further consider her offer. "My lord father'd die at the thought, except he's already dead, can't kill him again."

Her erstwhile host actually looked more reluctant. "Your Grace. My daughter is innocent, my crimes and those of my father ought not lie at her feet. Take her as a hostage as you will, but..."

Aerea had to admire the man's courage. Hoster Tully's life and position survived, for now, through a tenuous thread of her recent merciful proclamation, yet he remained willing to sacrifice what he'd just retained for fear for his daughter.

"Lord Hoster," Aerea replied him, alternating her eyes before the kneeling lord and the triumphant northman, "I intend for Lady Catelyn to be raised in the Red Keep with the heir to Winterfell, so they may grow up together and see each others as friends, rather than an enemy Stark or an enemy Tully. Your daughter will be Lady of Winterfell, not an insignificant title, and I will not allow her to travel north until I have Lord Rickard's word and promise of her well treatment."

"Aye, I won't begrudge the lady for her father's truculence." He spoke boldly, yet Aerea could still sense the man's hesitation towards a betrothal that was, in truth, being forced upon him on the spot. Rickard Stark would come to accept it sooner or later, the queen told herself, and he'd see the wisdom in her command. She'd been toying with the idea since leaving King's Landing, hearing the words repeated from the witch which only confirmed what seemed to her a most glaringly obvious practicality. The rest of the strange pronouncements...well, she did not speak a word of it to any of her men after that strange night atop High Heart, lest they think her as mad as her mother. But truth was that Aerea had barely slept since then, and when she did, echoes of the hag's madness ran through her dreams alongside her mother's voice.

"Let the Gods be the judge, Lord Rickard," Aerea continued. "If the second babe is a girl, I'm sure Lord Hoster will try and try again for a son. If the Gods do not favor him, then your grandchild will inherit both Winterfell and Riverrun."

Hoster gulped solemnly. At least she gave the man an excuse to bed his wife every night for the next fifteen odd years.

"The matter ought be settled then," Jon proclaimed next to her. "Justice has been delivered to the two instigators of the war, justice harsh yet fair..."

Tywin Lannister's face remained impassive, which could only mean that he was less than satisfied by the course of her justice. She would appoint him Hand, Aerea decided then and there, appease him, and keep him close until she could find a way to defang the lion. Jon would understand, and the man she trusted the most with affairs of the state would still remain in the capital to keep a wary eye on the hungry beast of the west.

The queen's future Hand glanced down at his scroll to read through the next man in line for her justice. "Lord Aerys Blackwood, who surrendered with his liege lord at Riverun..."

When her mother uttered those strange words which she'd hear through a witch's mouth years later, Aerea had thought it yet another symptom of her madness. Yet, she'd thought remarkable even then that the late queens eyes appeared far more lucid, clearer as she'd not seen in years, not since Viserys's wedding. Part of her wondered whether her Dornish child husband had actually been good for her, was helping her recover, before the nonsense she spewed dispelled any last hopes of her mother's recovery.

'It's almost as the Gods themselves were speaking through them both,' Aerea thought, while pronouncing a rather benign judgment upon Lord Blackwood. 'Or demons. Or...not all Gods are benign, are they?'

Blood enemies...Stark and Tully. Or could that be Lannister and Reyne? Tywin would never allow that, she knew, he'd rebel were she to force such a marriage upon him, so let her believe it meant the former.

The pact of ice and fire renewed...an ancient figure of prophecy to come from the Tully line...she had children to spare, she'd need more children, so would Lords Stark and Tully...

...because why would the Gods be so determined to deliver her this message, unless the Crone herself intended that this prince who was supposed to be promised was to come from the line of the dragon...

* * *

**The Citadel**

...Queen Aerea originally intended for Helaena, her second child, to be wed to Eddard Stark, Lord Rickard's second born, but the girl's death from a severe fever in 267 AC at the age of four forced the queen to make adjustments to her grand plans in tying the realm together. Increasingly wary of Casterly Rock's influence, and lacking a second daughter (though she'd give birth to Princess Shaera later in the year), Aerea arranged for the young Stark's betrothal to Meryenne Reyne, who'd been Lady of Castamere since her infancy after Roger's exile and the disinheritance of his grown sons.

The betrothal was obviously intended as a check on the heir to Casterly Rock's ambitions; though the Starks had been allies of House Lannister, should things change, then the Queen hoped she could rely on their loyalty to dragon over lion, now that their aims of regaining Moat Cailin and the Neck were complete under her watch. Indeed, there remained little practical reason for the original alliance.

However, to assuage concerns from her new Hand, the queen next arranged for Lord Jaime, Tywin's eldest son, to be wed to Hoster Tully's second daughter Lysa (his elder sister Cersei had been betrothed to Crown Prince Aegon from the moment of her birth in 266 AC.) Princess Trysta had originally proposed her daughter Elia for the heir to Jaime; despite his wife's close friendship with the matriarch of Sunspear, Lord Tywin rejected the proposal in so rude a manner which was to be remembered by the Martells for years to come.

More invitations were sent across the land in the coming years, inviting the Lords Paramount of the land, and more importantly their children, to the capital, so determined was the queen to coax the heirs of the next generation in growing up together in the same castle, a tact which she fervently believed would forestall the ruinous intra-continental wars which had plagued the crown since her grandfather Baelor's reign. Indeed, by the end of the decade, the following betrothals had been made under Queen Aerea's command or watchful eye:

\- Prince Aegon to Cersei Lannister, pairing the Prince of Dragonstone with Lord Tywin Lannister's firstborn.

\- Brandon Stark to Catelyn Tully, joining the eldest children of the two rival houses.

\- Doran Martell to Visenya Targaryen, marrying the heir to Dorne with Queen Aerea's youngest sibling.

\- Prince Aemon to Lyanna Stark, joining Rickard Stark's only daughter with Queen Aerea's second child.

\- Robert Baratheon to Elia Martell, joining the heir to Storm's End with Princess Trysta's second child.

\- Jaime Lannister to Lysa Tully, joining the eventual heir to Casterly Rock with Hoster Tully's second born.

\- Arnold Arryn to Princess Shaera Targaryen, marrying the heir to the Eyrie with Queen Aerea's only living daughter.

\- Eddard Stark to Meryenne Reyne, marrying Rickard Stark's second child with the Lady of Castamere.

\- Edmure Tully to Rowena Arryn, marrying the heir to Riverrun with Hoster Tully's second born.

\- Stannis Baratheon to Ashara Dayne, marrying Steffon Baratheon's second child to the sister of Ser Arthur Dayne of the Queensguard.

Arrangements would have been likely made for Mace Tyrell, heir to Highgarden, was he not betrothed already to a Hightower girl. To mentor her heir Aegon, the queen had her choices of great lords, ultimately following in the example of her namesake and selecting a Baratheon in 270 AC. As Lord Steffon's squire, the young prince excelled in his martial education, while his great uncle Jaehaerys tutored the boy in his academics. Described as a most promising young man, if a bit headstrong, Prince Aegon nevertheless nearly ripped apart all his mother's grand plans by 274 AC...

* * *

**Visenya Targaryen - 274 AC**

Gasping and cooing at once, Visenya's nephew collapsed on top of her naked body. The Crown Prince's softening organ remained lodged inside her while he nibbled gently at her neck and right cheek, and the queen's sister clutched tightly his buttocks with her thighs, willing her womb to absorb as much of the royal seed as her body could bear. Slowly the princess dragged her fingernails against the tender skin upon his back, each groan of pleasure from the royal heir further evidence of how much deeper she was burrowing her claws inside the young man.

"Gods, I want you Visenya."

He went for her lips next, clumsily sticking his tongue inside her mouth. That was good too, that he coveted more than just her body. As their lips embraced, Visenya felt him sliding slowly out of her. Almost as quickly fingers crept down where his prick had been. Giving no notice to the seed he'd just spilled, he rubbed one filthy hand up her navel, until her breasts were covered by the precious royal seed. What a waste. Slowly, her hand took hold of his enthusiastic fingers, and she brought it up to her mouth, tasting him as she giggled demurely, wickedly.

"I swear, Visenya, your insane idea grows less insane by the day." Breathless, Aegon signed contently while his body flapped down atop of her. All she could see of him was the top of his head, his glorious golden hair, while she felt his breath, and then his tongue, kissing the side of her one breast.

"It's because I know better than you, Egg. I know what's good for you. I know what's good for us. I think of my mother, how she loved the handsome Lord Duncan, what it did to her when they denied her that love..."

"Mother will have my head if we elope," Aegon muttered childishly, reminding her of how much of a child her nephew still was. At least his voice had turned, it made her feel better about this. "If Lord Steffon doesn't take it first himself."

Still, any child was better than that sullen Dornish shadow of a man, Doran Martell, and Egg wasn't going to remain a child forever. No, Visenya thought he'd grow into quite an impressive man, he was already so close at the cusp of it.

"You forget I'm Her Grace's favorite sister."

"Think she likes a half frozen Roger Reyne better than aunt Baela," Aegon said innocently, unsubtly reminding her of their relation.

"Let me be your Queen, and I'll let you fuck Baela, or any wench you'd have." His eyes were a soft blue. Not purple, like her mother's, Visenya was thankful of that. Not the deep blue like her queenly sister's, but a soft blue like Elbert Arryn's. "Jon Connington too."

The light, affectionate kisses stopped. "I don't want Jon Connington."

"You can have Jon Connington," Visenya continued teasing him, knowing that she could. When his muscles stiffened at the mention, no doubt reminding him of how she'd caught the two of them...exploring...each other in the stables, she continued rubbing her palms all across his body, nails glancing by his buttocks and his balls. "Any lady, any young squire, any old lord...tell me Egg, do you think Lady Cersei would let you do that?"

"Probably not," Aegon admitted. His betrothed was growing into quite a beauty, though she was said to be a handful by all the ladies who frequented the Hand's tower. Which was why Visenya had to act now, seal her salvation from the Dornish nightmare awaiting her, before it was too late. Fortunately she had teats, and a woman's curves; it would still be many years before Cersei Lannister grew the same.

"I want only you, Visenya."

He probably believed this. As a King, he'd be tempted by all the ladies of the realm, there were very few men who were as virtuous as her grandfather, Baelor the Beloved, except Egg would be tempted by the men too. Connington, he let Aegon into his pants because he wanted him, because Aegon was prettier than him, not the other way around. It was easy for the young man to swear off the griffin lord now, but Visenya knew that teats and a cunny would not be enough for the future king, not when prettier knights made their way into his court. Visenya did not care, so long as she sat by his side when he ruled, so long as he washed off his prick after sticking it in some squire's arse, and before he stuck it in hers.

"You have me," she whispered into the boy's ear. "All of me. Leave me be, marry your betrothed, and you'll still have me all your life."

"It would do you dishonor," Aegon protested, lifting her head, innocent blue eyes guiltily observing hers. "I don't want to do that to you, my love."

Despite his lusts he had ample Arryn in his heart. Visenya would play to his sense of honor now, she'd play to every sense and every feeling she could discover from boy, until he was hers completely, damn her sister, damn the High Septon, damn even Tywin Lannister.

Visenya stroked with one hand his fine golden hair, leading the other down between his legs, feeling him stiffening again, rapidly. Aggressively, she groped him like a prince groping a wench, claiming him for herself, and her alone.

"I know my sister. She's merciful, she's soft behind that knight's mask she wears. Her Grace will be angry at you, she'll shun you, for a time. Then she'll forgive you...if she let Roger Reyne live, if she let Hoster Tully raise his children in Riverrun..."

"I'll throw it all away for you," he gasped, lifting himself as he held his hips above her, ready to mount her again. With every word he spoke, she stroked him with her hand. "I don't care if my mother disinherits me, let Aemon be king, we'll run away together, we'll go east, to Qohor. I'll lead an army, I'll make them respect me. Then we can conquer our own kingdoms together, Norvos and Lorath and Braavos...no, Slaver's Bay, we'll take all the cities with their pyramids and statues of the false gods..."

The words were music to her ears. It was exactly what she wanted to hear, though she doubted her sister would ever hand the crown to that dimwit Aemon.

"Fuck me Egg," she sighed, submitting herself entirely to the crown prince. "Fuck me."

"I'll do anything for you..."

Visenya wanted to be queen. But she'd settle for just Egg. Anything was better than Doran Martell, and if she'd cultivated the boy from an easy age to escape her impending marriage the moment the heir to Dorne returned from his eastern tours, she'd come to appreciate him for who he was. There was something special to the man he'd become one day, and Visenya truly believed him, that he could accomplish whatever he'd claim to do. Gods, was she going soft, was she actually falling for the boy?

* * *

**The Citadel**

One of the popular conceptions of Aerea II today is the image of a clumsy, bedraggled mother hen, helplessly henpecked by the unruly brood of wards she'd taken on. Certainly, it makes for fun speculation on sitcoms and romcom films: barely clad, hormonal teenagers with their escapades inside the walls of the Red Keep rather than a sandy resort in Dorne, or the suburbs of Blackwater City. There is some truth, however, to her portrayal in movies such as _Ten Things I Hate About Tully's_ , the bumbling matriarch unaware of her charges' urges, unable to predict that filling a castle with attractive and privileged higborns was no way to keep them chaste. Obviously scenes such as secret trysts between Catelyn Tully and the Baratheon brothers are beyond absurd, but it cannot be denied that the affair and elopement of Queen Aerea's son with her sister represents a serious failure of parental oversight.

Prince Aegon was said to have always been close to his aunt Visenya, a woman who'd come close to matching the beauty and entrancing nature of her mother, Rhaenyra III, but none in the court believed their relationship was anything romantic until rumors first spread in the weeks before their elopement. Few dared voice such slander openly however, Steffon Baratheon was known to be a lax and somewhat absent guardian (and parent for the matter), so the couple used the queen's visit to Highgarden as the opportune time to exercise their plans.

The implications were immediate. Lord Hand Tywin Lannister immediately demanded that either the Queen annul the marriage, or disinherit Aegon, name his brother Aemon her heir so as to switch Lady Cersei's engagement. The rare impolitic outburst from the westerman caused him immediate damage, greatly offending Rickard Stark for his flippant dismissal of his daughter Lyanna's rather active betrothal to the queen's second son. Regardless, Visenya's announcement that she was with the prince's child made talk of an annulment infinitely more difficult, while Aemon's feebleness in health and mind, compared to Aegon's intelligence and vigor not withstanding his impetuous action, gave the queen pause from any hasty actions regarding the succession.

Reaction from Sunspear was indignant at first, but became more muted when it became known that Prince Doran had also eloped with a Norvoshi woman while touring the city, in fact days before Aegon and Visenya bribed the septon in Stokeworth to perform their ceremony. The High Septon, eager to contain embarrassment on his end, proclaimed that the Faith had no objections considering the newlyweds were not siblings, and in fact their union was little different than a marriage between first cousins. It soon became evident from her lack of action that Queen Aerea intended to let matters be once the storm passed.

Canny enough to refuse her Hand's suggestion to betroth Lady Cersei to her youngest son Viserys, then a boy of one, thus giving Casterly Rock a tool to challenge Aegon's succession after her death, Aerea instead proposed Prince Doran's younger brother Oberyn, which Lord Tywin rejected rather brusquely, though not as rude as his rejection of Elia Martell years before. Relations between queen and hand cooled, and while neither acted rashly, Tywin Lannister quietly submitted his resignation and returned to Casterly Rock early in 275 AC.

Jon Arryn was reappointed to his old position, and to preempt any potential alliance between Riverrun and the Westerlands (a Tully daughter still betrothed to the heir to Casterly Rock at this time), Aerea made the surprising move to call Hoster Tully down to her Small Council, naming him Master of Laws. Any doubts the man may have held towards serving the regime must have been assuaged by the opportunity for more time spent by his eldest daughter Catelyn, a ward of the crown since 269 AC.

All was quiet until the following year when Brandon Stark, following the crown prince's example, rashly chose to elope with Daenerys Targaryen, a distant silver haired cousin of the Queen's. Perhaps in hindsight it could be said that the queen ought to have known better; the young woman came to court to pay tribute on behalf of her Chroyane based family, and simply never left. There'd been whispers that both she and Princess Visenya had vied for Aegon's attentions, and failing that, 'settled' for the heir of Winterfell, though many others claim that the two were deeply and madly in love. In a fit of fury, Rickard Stark did disinherit his eldest, which Lord Brandon was fine with. Bored with court life in general, the couple left within the year for Qohor, where the expat northman made a name for himself in the constant battles with the Dothraki hordes.

Clearly adjustments needed to be made to the queen's matchmaking arrangements. First and foremost she needed to enforce her edict settling the Stark and Tully feuds, so Lord Rickard's second son Eddard saw himself betrothed to jilted daughter of Riverrun, while his original intended, Lady Meryenne Reyne, was instead promised to Arnold Arryn, Lord Jon's eldest son by his third wife Genna Lannister. Dividing lines within the continent began to form. The Starks and Tully's, their enmity held off by royal edict and the future joining of their seed, joined the Arryns and Baratheons holding the queen's faction, while Princess Trysta was presumed an ally from afar. Highgarden remained indifferent as it had since Lord Luthor's reign as Lord Paramount, and while Quellon Greyjoy was eager to thrust his islands into Westerosi modernity, the Lord Reaper was at the time more occupied with internal reforms than court politics.

Thus, the Queen was watching carefully her former Hand in 276, aware of his discontent but knowing that Tywin was too cautious to instigate a rebellion he knew he had no chance of winning, one which his cousin Lady Tianna might not even support. Meanwhile, the queen had over the years become a staunch believer in the so-called 'Prophecy of the Dawn' which claimed, among other things, that the eventual savior of the realm would arise through Tully blood (or so Aerea II interpreted it). With Rickard Stark's approval, the betrothal between his daughter Lyanna and Prince Aemon was broken, with Lysa Tully taking the northern girl's place. The Lord of Winterfell, his eldest son having broken a betrothal already, was pacified by the three year old Prince Viserys taking his older brother's place.

(Neither daughter found themselves pleased with the new arrangement. Lady Lyanna was said to be vocally indignant towards being engaged to a toddler, while the future Queen Lysa had apparently been extremely enamored of the young Lannister heir, and she looked to her sickly new husband-to-be with only disgust).

The result of these new arrangements was yet another insult to Casterly Rock, Jaime Lannister having been left in the lurch of the queen's plans. The tying of Tully and Targaryen bonds, likely inspired or expedited by prophecy, reversed Aerea's former alliances during Roger's Rebellion at the beginning of her reign; satisfied with her new ally in Riverrun, the queen was confident in her standing with her loyalist great lords to deliberately insult House Lannister yet again, perhaps hoping to provoke the lions into treason so as to curb Lord Tywin's ambitions. It is known that Jon Arryn, serving his second stint as Aerea's Hand, greatly mistrusted the man; as if to cement the new state of the crown's support, Lord Jon duly stepped aside again for his queen to pronounce Hoster Tully her next Hand early in 277.

Events came to a head in 280 AC. First came the passing of Tianna Lannister, resulting in Lord Tywin's long awaited succession as Lord Paramount (his father Tytos died in 276 AC). Then Walter Whent, the old but congenial Lord of Harrenhal, held a grand tourney from which all the realm attended, including Lords Tywin and Jaime, the latter an eager and budding swordsman of some talent. As usual, Queen Aerea impressed the attendees with a dazzling display of her marksmanship and skills with the arrow, and all the great lords settled into a feast to celebrate a decade and a half of the Queen's peace.

It was there, before all the realm, that Queen Aerea presented evidence of her new Warden's alleged attempts at treason. While his son Jaime had been promised to Lynesse Hightower (daughter of Leyton) a year before, the Lady Cersei remained strangely unattached. The reason soon became apparent when Aerea revealed letters bearing Tywin's signature and seal, promising his daughter to the queen's recently widowed (and childless) brother Daeron, then a courtier in the Lysene court of Phinearys II Rogare.

Though Tywin protested that he had no ill intentions, what other motive could the man have harbored for betrothing his daughter to the queen's only surviving brother in secret, except for a future usurpation before the marriage could be made public. Much as he protested his innocence, the implications of his guilt was evident in the eyes of all his greatest peers, and though the queen was not justified to condemn the man for any crime without a just trial, she was justified in "inviting" his twin children back to the Red Keep as her wards.

Before the feast was over, Lord Jaime had become husband to Princess Elia Martell of Dorne, and his sister the wife of Prince Oberyn, Elia's younger brother. There was no protest from the Baratheons. It had been long known by then that Lord Robert desired the young daughter of Winterfell, so yet another betrothal was amended and sealed during that eventful feast. Thus, by the end of the queen's melodramatically tumultuous 'decade of love', the following lists the marriages which actually occurred:

\- Prince Aegon to Visenya Targaryen, his aunt.

\- Doran Martell to Mellario of Norvos.

\- Brandon Stark to Daenerys Targaryen, resulting in the former's disinheritance by his father.

\- Eddard Stark to Catelyn Tully, to maintain the Treaty of Riverrun.

\- Prince Aemon to Lysa Tully.

\- Arnold Arryn to Meryenne Reyne.

\- Jaime Lannister to Elia Martell, as "punishment" against Tywin Lannister's treason.

\- Oberyn Martell to Cersei Lannister, as "punishment" against Tywin Lannister's treason.

\- Robert Baratheon to Lyanna Stark.

\- Edmure Tully to Rowena Arryn, only one of two betrothals which actually materialized into marriage.

\- Stannis Baratheon to Ashara Dayne, only one of two betrothals which actually materialized into marriage.

Prince Daeron, Aerea's wayward brother, was ordered to take the Black. Queen Phinearys, herself under the implication of harboring a potential traitor and pretender, duly obeyed the royal summons and sent her courtier on a ship to Eastwatch-by-the-Sea.

(It remains unknown to us today exactly how Queen Aerea obtained the secret letter. One intriguing though unlikely theory holds that the evidence was sent to her by none other than Tywin's wife Joanna. Perhaps aware of her husband's intentions, the new Lady of Casterly Rock held reservations at both betraying her longtime friend in the queen, as well the consequences of failure upon her family. By sabotaging the plot before it could fully metastasize, Lady Joanna might have saved the lives of all her brood, while obtaining the Martell marriages she had originally intended for her children, only to have been vetoed by her husband).

Her crisis's averted, the remainder of the queen's reign was exactly as uneventful as the wise monarch might have hoped for. The heirs to her realm intermarried as to her wishes, though the posthumous results of Aerea's great experiment would remain unknown to her in life...

...a calculating and intelligent personality that was often seen as cold and unfriendly, Aerea II was respected but never loved by the ruling Westerosi elite, with the exception of the few she considered close friends. Yet acclaimed by the smallfolk for her sense of justice as well as her modest prowess in archery, perhaps the greatest legacy of her reign lies in the lack of executions conducted, royal or otherwise.

After Roger's Rebellion, where she'd seen fit to ignore her would be pretender uncle in Pentos, the queen instructed that no lord, lady, or knight, including hedge knights, could be executed without royal permission. Thus while she ruled, less than two dozen highborns died by royal edict (4 for kinslaying, 3 for 'rapine of a particularly cruel variety', and 6 for lesser degrees of murder, the rest for crimes against the smallfolk). In the same vein, all her Lords Paramounts were commanded to similarly approve the executions of each commoner in their respective kingdoms, and it is estimated that less than 100 lowborn executions were carried out during her reign.

283 AC saw a rare eventful year in Aerea's later reign. Within her western realms, the young Edmure Tully finally reached his maturity at six and ten, and though Hoster Tully was both her Hand as well as a close confidante by then, the queen nevertheless held true to her word in ordering him to proceed to Castle Black immediately when heir came of age. In Essos, a religious dispute saw the overturning of the Volentene sect of R'hllor in the city's worship, prompting Queen Obella Maegyr of Volantis and her Lysene counterpart in conducting a brief war, which saw the city falling to Targaryen armies for the second time, this time permanently. The city granted to Volantis, this latest addition to the Iron Throne, yet another conquest conducted with little approval or support from the Iron Throne, though this would ultimately instigate the wealth of eastern problems with plagued the reign of Aegon IV Targaryen and his successors.

Queen Aerea caught a strong fever in the eighth moon of 288 AC, and though the initial sickness passed, the queen never truly recovered. Weakened by coughing fits and intermittent bouts of sickness, Aerea fell severely ill again in the last moon of the year, dying before it passed at the age of 50; Lord Commander Arthur Dayne knighted her upon her deathbed, a rare honor.

The skillful rule of all her predecessors since Jaehaerys the Wicked cemented the third century AC as truly 'The Targaryen Century', representing the zenith of her family's prestige and power, and it was only through her efforts by which the weakness of her mother's rule were consigned as a historical curiosity, rather than abject disaster for her dynasty. Though too often she is viewed as only a caretaker queen during an uneventful era, without doubt Aerea II 'the Just Queen' deserves to be elevated to the highest pantheon of Targaryen monarchs, along with those of their successor dynasties...

* * *

**Aerea II Targaryen - 288 AC**

As she lay dying, she thought about death. It should not have come to a surprise to her, yet by the hells, this was her first time dying, how in the hells should she know what to expect? Her mother stank of death, Aerea thought, for years before the Stranger finally bothered to take her, all the Water Gardens stank of it, or was it just her imagination? It was tough to tell at this point.

"She wasn't the only one suffered, you know."

"I know," Ser Arthur said softly, standing guard by her doorway. Her new Lord Commander had been present at another queen's deathbed years before. Her stepfather, how strange is that, the man being nearly ten years younger than her, was concerned, as any whitecloak ought be for his queen, but he also knew that this was one enemy the Sword of the Morning could not protect her from.

"She lost a father, a son, a husband. I lost a father, a brother, a grandfather." Gods, her body was burning up. The fever had returned, and Aerea did not think her insides could withstand more barrages of this disease. "I watched her wilt away, Arthur, while we waited out the plague, day by day I saw pieces of her falling off, like chunks of...off...a cake."

Soon they'd gather around her, all her family, as if she already lay upon her funeral pyre. Of course she loved them all, and longed to see them, but Aerea did not want their pity, she did not want to see them crying for her. Where had she been, when her mother lay choking to death on her own vomit? Where was her loving and attentive family, who abandoned her upon inheriting Roger Reyne's regime of harems and milk of the poppy?

"You knew you had to be strong, where Rhaenyra was becoming weak. You had to be strong for her."

She'd never heard Arthur's voice falter like this, except when they spoke of her mother, his wife for a brief period of his youth. They'd lain together once, when Elbert was away visiting cousins in the Vale. The feast had been modest, Aerea had two glasses of wine, no more or less than she usually partook on such occasions, yet her mind strayed that night, wondering what it would be like to lie with any other man. When she commanded Arthur to disrobe and share her bed, just that one time, he'd been mortified, yet what choice did he have but to perform his duty. But the noble knight did not mount her like a man celibate for the better part of twenty years, not until she'd said the magic words.

"Fuck me like you fucked my mother," the queen had commanded. Instantly, she'd felt his muscles tightening under her grip, his groans became deeper, his thrusts more passionate. Aerea had wondered afterwards, once her dutiful whitecloak stood guard by her doorway as if nothing out of the ordinary had transpired, exactly how his eyes would have shone once she summoned the ghost that would forever bond them together. She also wondered how horrified Jon Arryn would be, were he to ever learn of that tryst. Just how would he react now, if she chose to confess from her deathbed the one time she'd strayed from her Elbert.

"Duncan came to the Water Gardens once. Did I ever tell you that?"

"No." This caught the Dornish knight's attention. Did he still feel the pangs of jealousy, after all these years?

"He was an old, broken man by then," the queen reminisced, recalling the impossible collection of wrinkles on the giant man's face, sad eyes looming over her. "They loved each other, you know. He was her first love. Maybe her truest. Sometimes I wonder..."

Aerea stopped speaking out of politeness, but Arthur's gentle voice continued her thought.

"Whether she would have been better, had he been by her side? Maybe she wouldn't have..."

"Drowned," Aerea answered. He was crying inside, she sensed. "I didn't let him see her. The servants told me that morning my mother was playing a game with...with you, and your other bedmates. 'Worshiping the Seven', that's what it was."

Arthur nearly choked upon hearing her recollection. He sat himself down on a small chair next to her deathbed, letting his guard down carefully. "Yes, she liked that one. She usually had me dress as the Crone, out of all things...I thought it was completely normal, you know...for me to be sharing my wife with so many...companions like that, every day, every night."

"You are Dornish, after all," she jested. He laughed, whether out of politeness, Aerea didn't know. "I didn't want him to see mother like that. Her eyes, how...far gone they were. The smells in the room...of...of, of debauchery. I told him that, I was blunt. He didn't care. He cried and begged to me. His second wife had just died that year. Lord Duncan never saw my mother after the plague out of...out of loyalty to her. He told me this. He said, he wished he'd been there for her. He wanted to be there for her now...but, I told him no. I told him, 'remember her as you do now. It's for the best, for all of us.' I don't regret that decision, but...I wonder...it felt like I'd stabbed him in the heart by my own hands. Yet...I've told myself every day since then, it would have hurt him more, to see her."

Did she believe that tale? What about what her mother would have wanted? Did a fucking Queen Regnant not have a choice in the matter?

'They should have been together,' the dying queen thought to herself, deciding upon her deathbed. 'What a great realm they could have led together, gentle queen and noble knight. I'll see her soon, I'll tell mother I was wrong, they were wrong, they were all wrong for cruelly ripping Duncan from her, but only after taunting her with glimpses of the man's good soul.

But what about father? What about me, I wouldn't exist, I wouldn't be here.'

None of this Aerea confided to Lord Arthur. She could tell he was buried in his own thoughts. For all the years they'd spent together, queen and guard, they'd rarely talked about her, almost never.

"I still don't know what to think about those years in the Water Garden," he finally confessed to her.

"It's alright," the dying woman said, trying to comfort him. "You didn't know what to think then. It wasn't right, what they did to you. At least the other bedservants, they got their coin, they could leave, but you had to stay there with her, care for her, when she was beyond help."

"She wasn't a monster, you know," he insisted, reflexively defending his long dead wife. "I don't think there was one mean bone in her body."

"You're right," Aerea agreed, recalling the fond days spent with her mother, before everything went to shit. Her gentle and sweet mother, who taught her songs like Florian and Jonquil and the Good Queen Alysanne, who promised her romance and a fair knight and read to her every night as a child. "There wasn't."

Aerea could only hope that when she'd disappeared, leaving a shell of a body to serve as Queen Regnant for ten years, it was into the mists of those gentle songs and stories she'd disappeared into.

"I feel sad for her, I think," Arthur said contemplatively. "It was the Gods who cursed her, who broke her. We were just to ones who had to clean up their mess."

"What the Father deems necessary to take from us, the Mother gives back."

No words struck more true with her dragon's blood...her mother, the Maegor's and Daemon's...the Viserys's, the Baelor's...the blessed reign she'd enjoyed, her children, Aegon, the greatest blessing of her life. Raising him hadn't been easy, especially they'd both betrayed her together, her son and her sister together. But he was stronger than her in body. Smarter than her grandfather in mind. Most importantly, Aegon was a man, by all the Gods, they'd come to respect him one day more than they did her and her great namesake combined.

"Watch over him for me," she whispered. "He'll be the greatest of all of us, he'll be the legacy I leave behind, what I'm remembered for."

Arthur promised, and for the first time since her elder brother's death, Aerea though she could rest easy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aerea II Targaryen (238 AC - 288 AC)  
> Reign (263 AC - 288 AC)
> 
> Also called:  
> Aerea 'the Plain'  
> Aerea 'the Matchmaker'
> 
> Hands of the Queen  
> Jaehaerys Targaryen (263 AC - 264 AC)  
> Jon Arryn (264 AC - 267 AC)  
> Tywin Lannister (267 AC - 275 AC)  
> Jon Arryn (275 AC - 277 AC)  
> Hoster Tully (277 AC - 283 AC)  
> Jon Arryn (283 AC - 285 AC)  
> Barristan Selmy (285 AC - 288 AC)
> 
> Issue:  
> Aegon Targaryen (b. 260 AC)  
> Helaena Targaryen (b. 263 AC)  
> Aemon Targaryen (b. 265 AC)  
> Shaera Targaryen (b. 268 AC)  
> Viserys Targaryen (b. 273 AC)


End file.
